Abstract: | The author presents material from Homeric texts that is expressed in the middle voice, an ancient Greek verb form that strikes a balance between passive and active voices. A clinical vignette is presented in which the analysand expresses herself in a way that captures some of the sensibility of the middle voice. The author discusses ways in which the vision of human experience expressed by the middle voice, a vision that was developed and elaborated in the later Greek tragedies, can illuminate psychoanalytic approaches to problems of personal agency and conflict. |