The Lost Analyst and the Phoenix: Image,Word, Myth,and the Journey from Dissociation to Integration

ABSTRACT

The Phoenix myth is commonly thought of as a simple Egyptian parable of re-incarnation. In contrast, this analytic dyad found that the visual images evoked by its elaborated mythemes (sub-plots) related to the various existential moods and affects characteristic of trauma identified by Stolorow (2007 Stolorow, R. D. (2007), Trauma and Human Experience: Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic, and Philosophical Reflections [Psychoanalytic Book Series, Vol. 23]. New York: The Analytic Press. [Google Scholar]), suggesting a psychological purpose, that of emotional self-renewal. Mythology has most consistently been adopted for use in Jung’s analytical psychology, but this article demonstrates this myth’s usefulness with a contemporary relational psychoanalytic approach, that of intersubjective-systems theory. This was effective for an analysand whose former analysis had been abruptly terminated. It was found that the dialogic exploration of possible meaning in the mythemes brought dissociated experience into language, assisted with the emotional integration of the trauma, and restored the analysand’s diminished sense-of-being. Images bring together diverse somatic, cognitive, and verbal information, normally separated into different communication “codes” (Bucci, 1997a Bucci, W. (1997a), Symptoms and symbols: A multiple code theory of somatization. Psychoanal. Inq., 17: 151–172.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This ancient myth’s longevity may be due to a useful psychological function; its images can aid the organizing of unformulated unconscious chaotic experience and assist in the process of bringing dissociated or preverbal emotions and moods into language. The utility of the Phoenix myth in a relational dialogical process that helps symbolize unsymbolized unconscious content could assist in work with other survivors of catastrophic loss.