Serpent and the Staff/ The Mermaid and the Diver: Stalking the Roots of Psychoanalysis

Within a field which ostensibly aims its focus on the unknowability of a realm below the surface, the unconscious, but which continues its tradition of basing itself in a rational mode "above ground," ego consciousness, this book aims to "stalk the roots" of the psychoanalytic enterprise in a ground breaking manner. The goal is to bring to light foundational ancestors and agencies, invisible principles and ways of seeing, underlying attitudes and structures which make up the core of the analytic mind in its approach to the question, what heals? It starts with the ancient art of alchemy which integrates theory and practice, worker and worked upon, and moves from there to illustrate the nature of language as an undercurrent in the flow of the healing process. Ritual and myth serve as guides into the core inter-relational nature of the psyche, as a "wilderness of mirrors," and finally pathos, experience itself in its essential leaning toward chaos. is presented as the psyche's "matter" being worked upon in the analytical mode. In short, "Stalking..." intends toward opening the vision of a field which daily grapples with the darkest "underworldly" aspects of the human soul, towards its ur, originary, depth and breadth.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One - Alchemical Awakening: the Initial Mess

Chapter Two - Hands in the Mess: Prima materia in Psychoanalysis

Chapter Three - Rhetoric and Therapy

Chapter Four - Ritual as Healer: Return to Origins

Chapter Five - Myth as Guide: Wound as Healer

Chapter Six - Gnostic Myth as Dream

Chapter Seven - Self/Other: The Infinite Wilderness of Mirrors

Chapter Eight - The Fiery Furnace/The Sacred Bath

Chapter Nine - Slipping into the Swamp

Chapter Ten - Psychopathology I: A Double Vision

Chapter Eleven - Psychopathology II: The Soul as Borderline

Bibliography

Index