The Alchemical Oedipus: Re-Visioning the Myth

The Oedipus myth is foundational to depth psychology due to Freud’s use of Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex in the creation of psychoanalysis. But analytical psychology’s engagement with the myth has been limited despite the importance Jung also places upon it. The absence of a developed Jungian response to Oedipus means the myth’s psychologically constructive elements have been overlooked in favour of reductive Freudian interpretations. I examine whether analytical psychology can fruitfully re-engage with Oedipus by reinterpreting his story as a paternal rebirth. This is achieved by reincorporating those parts of the myth that occur before and after the period portrayed in Oedipus Rex. Such a move reintegrates Oedipus’ father, King Laius, into the story and unveils important parallels with the alchemical trope of the king’s renewal by his son. Using Jung’s method of amplification, Oedipus is recast as Laius’ redeemer and identified with the archetype of psychological wholeness, the Self. The contention is that such an understanding of Oedipus supports a clearer recognition of the potentially generative quality of human suffering, restoring to the myth the quality of moral instruction it possessed in antiquity.     

The attitudes toward forcible date rape (FDR) scale: Development of a measurement model

Using data from 341 female and 237 male college students that were collected previously (Fischer, G. J.,Archives of Sexual Behavior, 15, 457–466, 1986), several true score measurement models were used to describe the variance-covariance structure of a nine-item attitude toward a forcible date rape (FDR) scale. The congeneric true score model fit the data best, but not satisfactorily. By deleting noncongeneric items, a six-item, unweighted linear composite variable based on the congeneric true score model was shown to fit the data, and reliabilities and validities based on this model proved satisfactory for females, males, and the total sample. The factor structure of the model for females and for males was not equivalent, but the general patterns were similar. Suggestions for further research included a validation study of the six-item scale on an independent sample and a comparison of 5-and 7-point Likert response scales to see if the lack of model equivalence by gender could be due, in part, to more variability in attitudes toward forcible date rape in men than women.     

Is analytical psychology a religion? Rationalist and romantic approaches to religion and modernity

The relationship between analytical psychology and religion is part of the larger issue of the relationship between modernity and religion. There are three main views on the issue. The fundamentalist position sets religion against modernity and opts for religion over modernity. What I call the 'rationalist' position likewise sets religion against modernity but opts for modernity over religion. By contrast to both views, what I call the 'romantic' position reconciles religion with modernity. Rationalists maintain that religion can exist only in so far as it serves as an explanation of the physical world, which the rise of science now precludes. Romantics maintain that religion, while serving as an explanation of the physical world till dislodge by science, is at heart anything but an explanation. The toppling of the religions explanation by the scientific one, far from dooming religion, prods religion into making explicit what it has in fact been all along. By this categorization, Jung is overwhelmingly a romantic. For him, the function of religion has always been more psychological than explanatory, and the rise of science does not preclude the continuing existence of religious myths as a psychological rather than an explanatory phenomenon. For those for whom science does spell the demise of religion, secular myths can replace religious ones, and those secular myths are more secular versions of religions myths than secular alternatives to religions myths. Yet even if for Jung religion can still exist today because religion is in fact psychology, it does not follow that psychology is therefore a religion.     

Understanding Jung: recent biographies and scholarship

The tendency to associate Jung with Freud has undergone a change and both are increasingly perceived as founders of depth psychological schools whose exact relationship is unclear. The separation of the two was largely due to Jung's rejection by the psychoanalytic community because of his perceived spiritual inclinations. Recent scholarship has emphasized these spiritual inclinations in both a positive and negative way and brought to light Jung's non-Freudian sources, while other Jungian practitioners are seeking a closer association with psychoanalysis. This conflicting development is related to tendencies in Jung himself that are evident in his own life and in research conducted into the writing and publication of Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Though the status of the latter as Jung's autobiography has been called into question there remains the necessity to explain the myth of Jung's life enshrined there and the impact this has had on a public looking for meaning in a time of considerable change.     

Pre- and Postintervention Factor Analysis of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale

The effects of a bystander education intervention program on the factor structure underlying a rape myth acceptance scale were examined using exploratory factor analyses on secondary data. The Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale was administered to college students at a northwestern university both before (n = 363) and after (n = 352) receiving a bystander education program. Results from exploratory factor analyses showed changes in the factor structure from pretest to posttest. This suggests some instability in the factor structure of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale. These pre–post intervention differences in the rape myth acceptance factor structure suggest researchers use caution in using and interpreting scores based on the IRMA without regard to participants’ prevention program status.     

Randomized controlled evaluation of an early intervention to prevent post-rape psychopathology

A randomized between-group design was used to evaluate the efficacy of a video intervention to reduce post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health problems, implemented prior to the forensic medical examination conducted within 72 h post-sexual assault. Participants were 140 female victims of sexual assault (68 video/72 nonvideo) aged 15 years or older. Assessments were targeted for 6 weeks (Time 1) and 6 months (Time 2) post-assault. At Time 1, the intervention was associated with lower scores on measures of PTSD and depression among women with a prior rape history relative to scores among women with a prior rape history in the standard care condition. At Time 2, depression scores were also lower among those with a prior rape history who were in the video relative to the standard care condition. Small effects indicating higher PTSD and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) scores among women without a prior rape history in the video condition were observed at Time 1. Accelerated longitudinal growth curve analysis indicated a videoxprior rape history interaction for PTSD, yielding four patterns of symptom trajectory over time. Women with a prior rape history in the video condition generally maintained the lowest level of symptoms.     

Refusing the cure: Sophocles's Philoctetes and the clinical problems of self‐injurious spite,shame and forgiveness1

Sophocles's Philoctetes (409 BCE) is a dramatic masterpiece unfamiliar to most analysts. The play presents a complex portrait of self‐injurious spite of heroic dimensions as it touches on issues of intense shame, feelings of helplessness and the refusal of forgiveness. Sophocles's protagonist, Philoctetes, is a man who, like some of our patients, refuses to be healed. He intends, through his continued sickness and misery, to exact revenge against those who mistreated him. These are recognizable clinical issues, playing roles in every psychoanalytic treatment, issues that may assume a special importance in protracted, stalemated or aborted analyses. There are patients who damage the analyst by damaging the analysis they are in, a malevolent project often undertaken in revenge for wrongs suffered during childhood. This paper links Sophocles's drama to these vitally important clinical considerations through the discussion of a particular case.