幻象：世界的终结

我很不情愿把你所提的问题①中所包含的危机符号戏剧化。相反,请让我在本世纪初的一个哲学本和我们当下的忧思之间展开一种比较。《纯粹现象学和现象学哲学观念》之第一卷,是胡塞尔在第一次世界大战前一年出版的,也是他生前所发表这部巨的惟一一卷。这部巨从一问世就让他的追随不胜困惑。     

Rapunzel: the symbolism of the cutting of hair

I have adduced data to demonstrate that the act of cutting of hair is a symbol. The criterion of proof used is the traditional one in psychoanalysis: the idea carries constant meanings in separate areas of human experience and behavior. Such constant meanings are shown in a folk tale, the mental lives of patients, clinical studies by other authors, and certain practices of other cultures. The cutting of hair symbolizes separation from a mothering object, castration, and reparation.     

Family therapy: the rest of the picture

The specialist literature on family therapy naturally tends to focus only on the special features of what is a much larger body of skills and knowledge. To redress the balance this paper outlines the rest of the picture in various ways. About 90 separable component parts of family therapy are described. Some implications of this analysis are identified.     

Symbolic conceptions: the idea of the third

The idea of the third which appears in Jung's concepts of the transcendent function and the coniunctio also occurs in several psychoanalytic theories concerning the emergence of reflective and symbolic thought in childhood development (defined here as the development of 'imaginal capacity'). Noting the way this process is often conceived in terms of the metaphor of sexual intercourse leading to 'conception', this paper suggests that such images need to be understood as symbolic conceptions of the meaning-making functions of the human mind. This leads to a different view of psychoanalytic theories that attempt to account for the development of imaginal capacity in terms of the Oedipus complex. It is suggested that a) these functions must be operative in the mind before the Oedipal situation can become meaningful and b) that psychoanalytic theories are themselves symbolic conceptions which, like mythological narratives, seek to communicate and comprehend psychic reality through imaginal forms.