In 1935 physicist Albert Einstein proposed a theory on quantum mechanics which has become known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox. He subsequently denied the viability of quantum theory. Many others have remained uncomfortable with the disparity between the world as we experience and see it--solid objects which stay where you put them--and the documented quantum world where nothing really is as it seems. More recently, the nonlocal connectedness of two particles has been referred to as entanglement.

In quantum physics, experimental research on “entanglement” points to the interconnectedness of what classical physicists call matter. Cloninger (2004), Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics at Washington University School of Medicine, notes:

“The experience of nonlocality leads to increasing depth of recognition of phenomena that are unique to quantum physics, such as noncausality and nonlocality. Nonlocality refers to the inseparability of the bits of information. It is the beginning of the recognition that information may be the fundamental basis of reality. Localized particles of matter cannot be the fundamental basis of reality, as shown by rigorous demonstrations of action at a distance. When there is nonlocal causality or action at a distance, a causal influence on one ‘object,’ has an instantaneous influence on another remote but ‘entangled object.’ Noncausality and nonlocality are the properties that distinguish quantum physics from classic and relativistic models of local physical realism” (p.195).

Clegg (2006-see Clegg, B. 2006 The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science’s Strangest Phenomenon. New York: St. Martin’s Press) proposed that entanglement consists of the linkage between the incomprehensibly small particles which make up our universe. Clegg noted:

“Even if these entangled particles are then separated to opposite sides of the universe, they retain this strange connection. Make a change to one particle, and that change is instantly reflected in the other(s)-however far apart they may be” (p.2).

Parenthetically, quantum physics is strange not just because it violates common sense and sense data (Ford, 2005). Many physicists, despite its long history of unblemished success in experimentation, believe that quantum mechanics is incomplete. Ford noted:

“...quantum mechanics is eerie not just because it violates common sense. It is strange for deeper reasons: it shows that nature’s fundamental laws are probabilistic; it permits particles to be in two or more states of motion at the same time; it allows a particle to interfere with itself; it says that two widely separated particles can be entangled” (p. 247).

Despite his aversion to quantum reality, Einstein believed: "A human being is part of the whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion in his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal decisions and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living, creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

I believe that although we are both separate and interconnected simultaneously, life is lived mostly at symbiotic levels. Many of us prefer not to see this in ourselves, partly because of the anxiety of self-loss, i.e., dependency and emotional connection threaten our sense of ourselves as continuous, cohesive, sovereign beings. Freud’s views of the personality were consistent with Newtonian physics and Darwinian biology, as well as Kantian philosophy. Psychoanalysis could be understood as an extension of the Kantian tradition of dualistic rationality (Cloninger, 2004), i.e., how human mental processes limit access to emotional reality.

Freud held to a dualistic, mechanical and rationalistic view of the world and of human beings. Human happiness always remains in conflict with society and is in opposition to misery. In his volume Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Freud concluded that it was impossible for human beings to love others as themselves. He rejected the notion of the universal unity of being. Freud called the sense of being an inseparable part of the whole as the “oceanic feeling,” which is a natural residue of the infant’s experience of the world in the fluid-filled amniotic sac of the mother. He thought that ego boundaries had to be erected as a means of self-protection, to avoid painful external influence and excessive stimulation from the drives, such as occurs with the withdrawal of the mother’s breast. Freud rejected the unity and inseparability of all life in the world. I am aware that I take an extreme position, one taken by many PostKleinians and intersubjectivists, that all of mental life involves relationship. Even our fear of death is intimately connected to separation anxiety. I do not believe that rationalistic dualism can, ultimately, heal our deepest wounds. I was reminded of that in the film “Kafka,” in which Jeremy Irons plays the besieged and paranoid author.

Knowledge of the state of one’s internal objects and relatedness to them, does not bring relief of suffering. Insight alone cannot heal these very deep wounds encoded in the ancient ‘circuits’ of the soul, the limbic system.

I believe that certain findings in quantum physics (e.g., entanglement), neurobiology (e.g., mirror-neuron systems), and relational approaches to psychoanalysis, all point to the essential aspect of the human condition: relation is the basis and perhaps very nature of the self. Relationship may be the psychobiological basis for all forms of psychotherapy.

Brian Koehler