Excerpt coming from Essay:
Melancholia lay in, while the loss My spouse and i felt became less and less linked to my body. We began to court death initial symbolically and after that literally. Freud would have observed the presence of the death desire in addition to describing the symptoms of “melancholia, ” or perhaps depression. Symptoms include “a profoundly agonizing dejection, escale of interest inside the outside community, loss of the capacity to take pleasure in, inhibition of activity, ” as well as self-loathing (Freud 1947, p. 39). The indications of depression happen to be skin to the symptoms of mourning the loss of someone you care about, with the crucial difference being in mourning the reason for the despair can be clearer and within the conscious realm.
The sole means to uncover the reason for melancholia is to check out the unconscious realm. My personal descent right into a dark state of mind parallels the stories of Eurydice and Persephone who have both had a desire to remain submerged in Hades’ realm. The darkness has led me to an specific exploration of the psychoanalytic procedure and how that applies to my journey. Psychoanalysis both in the college of Freud and of Jung offers the equipment to explore the underworld. Like Carl Jung him self, I needed yet did not have a “real live master, someone owning superior understanding and capacity, ” (p. 184). The underworld on its own became my personal mentor, a “midwife towards the soul, inch (“Looking Back at Orpheus” 2006, l. 145).
The “otherworldly” activities of the mind described simply by Freud, Jung, and Downing have required me to learn my own interior abysses (Jung 1963, l. 180). Most importantly, I started to be determined in order to wisdom through the underworld so that I could apply that to my practice as a psychologist. An underworld journey can be dangerous, because of its proximity with death. Downing (2006) claims that the underworld is sometimes “inescapable, ” (p. 129).
It can also be difficult to voluntarily enter and explore the underworld as a result of social stigma and taboo. For men especially, being logical and keeping away from realms of dream and fantasy are part of the existing social code. They were so also inside the days of the ancient Greeks. As Downing (2006) points out, “The tales about human male journeyers to the underworld… are, around the surface at least, told from a perspective that celebrates life in the top world while the only real your life available to us humans, inch (p. 137). Jung (1963) admits that underworld journeys are “tabooed and dreadful, ” censored and viewed as “the path of mistake, ” (p. 188). Executing an underworld journey can be a risky venture as one intends to weaken social lifestyle as well as career.
However , inner wisdom may not be located in the rational universe or inside the knowledge base of research. When Jung abandons his academic profession to explore the depths of his psyche this individual takes a enormous risk. The endeavor can be considered nothing less than heroic. A journey towards the underworld can be occasionally performed willingly, although more often than not the individual is “abducted, ” taken against her or his will. For me personally, the abrupt onset of anxiety and major depression after a physical trauma started to be the source of my emblematic abduction to the underworld. Jung’s visions were his hold. Yet Jung welcomed the journey with open biceps and triceps, going so far as to progress the ancestry. On l. 180 of Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Jung identifies how he consciously and willingly descended into his dream world to get imagery intentionally. “In in an attempt to seize hold of the dreams, I often imagined a steep descent. I possibly made many attempts to reach the very bottom. The first time My spouse and i reached, as it were, a depth of around a thousand ft; the next time I found myself close to a cosmic abyss…. I had developed the feeling that I was in the land from the dead. “
For me, the ability and power to cultivate a Jungian state of mind arrived later on. At first the journey for the underworld was akin to a great abduction. Right now there seemed practically nothing heroic about my descent. Abduction just might be part of the underworld initiation, as I learn how to incorporate the quest of Orpheus and other underworld explorers. Downing meditates for the nature of abduction that permeates myths related to underworld journeys. Particularly in Greek mythology, the number who is attracted to the underworld is either kidnapped or heroically rescuing somebody who was kidnapped. Gender at times, but not usually, determines which in turn underworld function an individual may possibly fulfill. For instance , Theseus “on a care to, for the sake of glory” enters the underworld but gets “stuck” (Downing 2006, p. 137). Although he undergoes an excellent initiation, Theseus seems “immune to underworld experience” as well as the adventure total seems “pointless” (Downing 2006, p. 138). Theseus’ “pointless” journey operates directly countertop to Jung’s idea of the meaningful underworld experience.
The objective of an underworld journey differs from person to person. “Journeys to the underworld undertaken although we are continue to alive are not only about controlling difficult occasions well… yet may also truly serve as preparations for Hades… so that when ever death, once ‘the end, ‘ comes we can proceed to it welcomingly, ” (Downing 2006, g. 141). Personally, as for Carl Jung, the underworld journey is the one which prepares myself for the development of deeper perception. The goal of the journey to the underworld is always to learn and more importantly, to keep in mind (Downing).
To successfully undertake an underworld journey and emerge with deeper wisdom, one needs an anchor in the world. The anchor reminds us of “normal existence” and helps us to stop slipping in a state of genuine insanity (Jung 1963, p. 189). As Jung (1963) puts it, I need to “plant the benefits of my personal experience inside the soil of reality, ” (192). For a few journeyers, the underworld can be a powerful place. In the same way Theseus became stuck inside the underworld, it truly is highly likely that a person might by no means return using their journey. Some may actually dedicate suicide. Others may resign themselves to a life of misery or perhaps mental disease. It would be simple to allow despression symptoms to overtake the heart and soul so definitively that one neglects family and additional aspects of personal responsibility. There is nothing heroic about this sort of a descent.
Downing (2006) notes which the underworld is “an uncanny realm, unidentified, and yet oddly familiar, inches (p. 129). There is a perception of comfort in the darkness. In mythology, female figures frequently are wanting to remain in the underworld because a perception of personal fulfillment can be derived therein. The underworld is completely a “sacred realm” that may be present always alongside the earth above (Downing 2006, s. 130). Staying in the underworld does not necessarily mean danger. Journeyers in the underworld have the opportunity to obtain knowledge and wisdom that will heal. Actually depression could possibly be more related to not being happy to explore the darkness by any means. Freud’s research of melancholia illustrates the psychopathology of melancholia can be directly related to unconscious grieving. Bringing the subconscious into conscious awareness leads to healing.
Jung presents his model of recovery via the underworld also when it comes to Eastern religion. The mandala becomes a image and representational representation of the interconnectivity between the underworld as well as the conscious world. Bridges between disparate realms of the mind can be visualized and recognized. Thus, to go to the underworld is to discover the missing bits of the mandala, to find balance and wholeness. The mandala illustrates how a person may descend fearlessly into the underworld without turning into irretrievably stuck.
Feelings of despair and self-loathing set out to subside because the individual is far more able to accept the wholeness of being rather than to focus solely on the mindful aspects. That is why it may be essential to temporarily remove oneself from the rigors of daily life, in order to discover new elements of the home and new sources of happiness. As Freud pointed out, ego and libido-attachments are underlying causes of melancholia. To avoid checking out ego attachments via a great underworld voyage is to resign oneself into a lifetime of despression symptoms and panic. Attachment to objects – whether actual or illusory – is a narcissistic act that only takes into account the demands of the spirit and neglects the requires of the bigger self. Clearing the ego attachment is actually heroes like Orpheus needed to do. We should respect fault us that seeks understanding from the depths. Only inside the depths of the underworld can we “detach the libido through the object, inch (Freud 1947, p. 6). The
