The Prenatal Dimension: Images in Art and Therapy

Abstract

Prenatal psychology allows for the enhancement of cultural-psychological and psychohistoric theories. All aesthetic behavior is a complex form of relationship behavior and is mostly fed by unconscious motivations. Cultural-psychologically and psychohistorically, humanity’s psychodynamic presents itself in symbolic ways, in a great variety of images. Images offer a synopsis of very complex unconscious content. As an example, abstract painting creates images on two-dimensional surfaces symbolizing physical sensations. Temples and churches, the “holy spaces” of humanity, are architectural representations of intrauterine experience. The religious images of the cultures of the world are attempts to symbolize pre-symbolic existential life experiences. This is what creates the strong hermeneutic ambivalences between reality and (alleged) fiction. Time and again, these symbolizations link to the deepest layers of human feeling by means of their affective power. Prenatal aesthetics (art analysis) is shown to be the foundation of evolutionary aesthetics.