(in English) 

 
 BION AND THE MYTH. From vengeance as acting (-α) to process as transformation (+α)

 The "Rosenthal Space" ( http://web.tiscali.it/cepsidi/spaziorosenthal.htm ), edited by Laura Felici Montani" (SPI analyst, Rome), is a space, inside Frenis Zero psychoanalytic journal, in which psychoanalysts reflect about the role of women in the socio-political vicissitudes of Mediterranean countries. This article has been presented, in the Italian version, at Bion Congress 2008 (Rome, January, 31- February, 3, 2008). Translated from Italian to English by Teresa Ngigi. 

The need for this paper comes from the prompting by Bion¹ who emphasizes the importance of the use of myth as “a model act in investigative or cognitive development”.

            As analysts, in an analytical room, we are alone in the world of stimuli, perceptions, feelings, images that the patient transmits and triggers in us. This chaotic confusion is difficult to turn into a theory when it happens with all its impact and implications, for this reason, it is important that the analyst “makes use of their imagination (myth)² and try to articulate it…”

            We wish to make some observations on the clinical work through the use of myth and in particular that of Erinni who were transformed into Eumenidi³, with the assumption that we shall provoke a reflection on possible transformations of whatever can happen in the mental system of the patient, just as the one of the analyst.

            Myth has the ability to stimulate, produce images, create new ones, transform inexpressible feelings into stories, in works of art, to give meaning and create knowledge about the human nature, its complexity, in its contradictory and incomprehensible aspects namely violence, cruelty, horror; every civilization has shown itself to possess an innate capacity to narrate, therefore the ability of knowing through creation of myths, the different facets of its typical social, natural, and historical reality.

            “All people have participated in the narrative of the myth” says Siracusano⁴. Myth is meant for sharing, and the word in myth is very important, just as the rest of the analysis, whereby the word is one of the hinges on which healing is based. The patient tells us something about himself, their personal myth, an experience that is sometimes strange in different versions, that can be viewed from different perspectives, giving it a tri-dimensionality whereas at times, it deals with bi-dimensionality, the triteness of a boring story, which has no feeling, no soul.

            The analysis itself should expand the capacity to think, and the myth takes care of this need because, with its variation and contradictory versions, it allows the mind to narrate itself⁵, in its functionality, and to describe the way it is organized. The patient sometimes speaks in an oracular manner, with the response of an oracle that is not clear even to themselves, which they bring into analysis for interpretation, but not as an absolute truth, because this could lead to disaster, as it happens in Oedipus, but something that needs time to unwind the narrative, in order to acquire a form and meaning.

            Every narrative is followed by another and still another, till everything becomes connected in its own logic that for both the analyst and the patient, it becomes “the myth” of that patient. It is there that the analysis can move on towards a further narrative till the next epistemological leap that allows an insight in the form of the myth.

            At times the stories that the patients tell us are so flawed and incomprehensible that we get lost. In this journey towards the unknown, which is in every analysis, Bion suggests that we use myth⁶, and we add, we use myth as a steering compass, a way to help us understand and orient ourselves.

            Attention to the narrative form as a procedure to develop subjective and group events makes it evident that in the narrative there can be more than the simple mimesis of actions and experiences. The narrative form allows the accomplishment of the real structure, dismantling and investigating the manner of the connection of events, creating alternative worlds in the past towards the archaic myths or ahead towards the happy utopia or worlds full of agonies. From this arises a new attitude towards the world of myths, that takes the term mytho-logy, whereby the two concepts of irrational/mithos and ration/logos⁷are joined inseparably.

            Our free association with these words goes to hic et nunc of the analytical session as suspended time flow, to the concept of constraint to relive and re-actualize it.

            As in the analytical session, the re-actualization doesn’t remain a simple compulsion to repeat, but it transforms itself into a lived account, filled with transferential elements here and now, thanks to the dramatization of the myth, the immobility of the event becomes the dynamic and dialectic of the episode of the scenic portrayal. Just like an organiser that portrays a myth, interpreting it through its outlook, its mind, so does the patient demonstrate to the analyst their own myth and in turn the analyst, as an active observer, goes through the emotions connected to the experience creating their own images in continuous feedback to the one analysed. This feedback enriches the myth with new, and ever more complex, chaotically creative versions.

            Based on Bion’s suggestion, we see a myth and freely reflect on it.

            The myth of ghenos of the Atridi, transposed in the Orestea of Eschilo, could be used to understand what happens during the session when the patient, in grief and difficulty, gives up their own habitual vengeful and punitive mechanisms in order to welcome the ability to accept, forgive, understand themselves and others, giving up grudges or the desire/duty to revenge, to punish the offence.

            The Eumenidi tragedy portrays the shift from ancient law, which is made of pure drive, revenge, bloodroot, represented by Erinni, to the law observed and regulated by human beings. It may be an imperfect law, but it is a consequence of a right rather than a projection, equal to everyone and exercised through the majority of votes. It might be through the mediation of Athena and the testimonial support of Apollo, that represent the reason, reflection, the elaborative capacity, the ability to negotiate, but also the political ability that shifts towards a human, flexible, organized, balanced law, based on shared understanding.

            Such a tragedy appears therefore as a sign of a passage from a principle to that of a secondary thought, in a mythical formulation.

            Erinni/Eumenidi appear to favour the personalization of the Id; in fact, they are the oldest divinity of Hellenic Pantheon, primitive forces that do not acknowledge the authority of the Gods, they have no other laws except their own, their task is to avenge criminals, they are against mothers in particular, driving homicides crazy, thus keeping social order, but they are also the personification of a sadistic and archaic Super–ego. In Oreste, we can glimpse the representation of the ego. In Athena, born from the Zeus’ head, paternal differentiating functions, the depiction of a female freed from fusion and schizo-paranoid dialectic good/bad breast, that gives life together with Apollo, to a Super-ego that promotes unhindered growth and is not inhibiting, to a good, fair and protective parental couple.

            The “Live Man”⁸ of Athena perpetually frees the individual from the agony of not knowing how their behaviour will be judged and seals one of the foundations of all modern civilization.

            It is for this reason that in our historic moment, we find it important to reflect on the birth of the democratic process as the internal structure of the mind that is able to contribute to the judgement of its own actions.

            A “democratic” dynamic among the various intra-psychic demands is the matrix that enables a social mentality to be more oriented to move from a schizo-paranoid position towards a depressive one.

            The first, characterized by the “fearful persecution of an environment without affection”⁹ (represented by Erinni), whereby the action predominates, vengeful acting, the triumph of – α, the inability to transform emotions and sensory impressions into thoughts, and then memories, the constraint to remain in the repetition, being prey of the β elements that are incapable of union among themselves.

            The second instead dominates the responsibility of one’s thoughts, actions, the acceptance to subject oneself to the human judgement, not divine (fruit of the projections of the sadistic aspects of personality) that brings about the transformation of even the divinity itself from the persecutions of Erinni to the “good willed Eumenidi”. This state can be defined as a “+α”, in other words the capacity to understand, the digestion of the emotions that are tied to significant events, the experience of a fear free paranoia.

            The Orestea is a family tragedy, there are violent lacerations: murder of a son, homicide and matricide in a growing repetition of an apparently endless vengeance. Eschilo makes use therefore of “the force of fear that gushes from the events of the family of the Atridi, in order to propose a new foundation of an orderly civil life in the city”¹⁰

“It so happens that what is fearful is good and should solidly remain, to guard the human minds”¹¹ sing Erinni in “Eumenidi”.

            That which is dreadful exercises a preventive action, preventing the separate and the polis from distancing themselves from an attitude of wisdom, “who, man or polis, if they are fearless, could revere justice?”¹².

            Through the threat of sanctions, the state prevents commitment of injustices. Eschilo uses “the burden of fear that the family was given to deeper levels of the psyche so that the public life finds an obstacle, as a point of reference that is free from deviations”.¹³

            “Who among men is in fact fair if he fears nothing?”¹⁴ asks Athena confirming therefore that is it impossible to separate justice from fear.

            We therefore ask ourselves, looking back 2,500 years, the meaning of the actual need to conquer fear at all costs, not recognizing it as a useful emotion towards the restructuring of the mind, as a +α.

            The fright to hurt another person for fear of being punished, even if it appears banal in its expression, is inside, says Eschilo, a way to prevent brief processes, the genocides decided over the table due to power interests. It is a restoring fear: a “+α ”, that is, an emotion that is transformed into thoughts at the moment in which it takes responsibility of a gesture, and accepts that conflicts are transformed through a “regular process” and not with a vengeful action “-α ”.

            It is the sadistic Super-ego that gets transformed into a Super-ego guaranteed by norms and interior rules, in an evolving process that is not only personal, but one that takes place even on the social group level.

            Knowledge has its origin from an emotional experience, as it happens to Oreste with Erinni and it is from it that change arises, represented by the passage of the ctonian law to a democratic one. What happens in the tragedy can be seen as a metaphor of the internal travail, that is implicit in change, be it individual or social group.

            In a dynamic group view, Eschilo represents the voice of its own social group that has known how to express this need through tragedy.

            What happens in Eumenidi can be seen as a catastrophic change, a “phenomenon that marks a sharp leap into the mental evolution or growth.”¹⁵

            Myth aids in understanding transformation and it can be understood as a bond model of K. Catastrophic change has an evolving meaning because it involves a rapid and total change of trend, a radical revolution in the evolution of a structure. The judgement of human events is no longer delegated “- α ” to the Gods, but it is assessed, “+α”, from a human assembly, in a group of equals, that through the vote establish if the action is either to be punished or not. The management of justice becomes personal within the limited and fallible humanity. It moves from a thoughtless action (-α) to one based on thoughts and on the sharing of personal and social responsibility (+α).

            “Such a disoriented sensation… constitutes of… a kind of “developmental crisis… preliminary condition necessary to bring forth new theories”¹⁶. The protests of Erinni regarding Athena’s decision show such a disorientation: “…Indisputable deceit of Gods / have torn me from the ancient honours, / reducing me to nothing”¹⁷

            Is this how the sadistic Super-ego feels when it gets impoverished from its powers?

            That same Super-ego that demanded, in the various religions, human sacrifices?

            How many of our patients can be seen as representatives of true and real human sacrifices on the altar of a sadistic Super-ego?

            From being prey to vengeful Gods thirsting for blood, man, through transformation in K¹⁸, Bion would say, has the duty to decide how to judge his own equal within a group context.

            We can ask ourselves how these transformations could bear the sadistic and violent thrust that therefore live in the mind of man. This is the more reason why human beings need to be strong and integrated, endowed with complex rules, a juridical law, in order to face the driven homicide and vengeful thrust.

            To take upon these responsibilities is a burdensome reality, but it is indispensable in order to no longer depend on one or more of the bizarre divinity as much as the self super-egoistic and sadistic projections.¹⁹

NOTES

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^1.         W.R. Bion (1963), Gli elementi della psicoanalisi, Armando, Roma, 1979.

^2.         Our italics

^3.         A thorough analysis of this myth was carried out by the authors of the article “Eumenidi: from primitive law to democratic law” published on Koinos n.2/2004, ed. Borla, Rome. We bring up this narrative as a note in order to help in understanding this intervention. The story, briefly, is narrated in the Eschilo’s Orestea, and is composed of three tragedies: Agamennone, Coefore and Eumenidi. It shows how the Argive king Agamennone fought for many years against Troy. In the first tragedy, it narrates how his wife, the queen Clitemnestra, found consolation from her own solitude in the arms of Egisto. When her real spouse returns victorious, she welcomes him with a false joy but with the intention of killing him. It’s only in this way that she could rule together with her lover and avenge her daughter Ifigenia that the father Agamennone had sacrificed to the Gods in order to obtain favourable winds for his navy leaving for the war. When the felony was committed, Clitemnestra promises to restore order and safety, but the wise Coro was sceptical and very anxious. In the fear for revenge, Clitemnestra gets rid of her own sons Elettra and Oreste who was still a child. In “Coefore”, we find Clitemnestra and Egisto who live under terror of revenge. Oreste returns to Argo to avenge, as ordered by Apollo, the murderer of the father Agamennone. Together with Elettra his sister, he is able to carry out this evil plan. Once justice is established, Oreste however falls into conflict between the new religion and that of ctonia, still co-existing. The matricide, in fact, according to the old tradition, is punished by the persecution of the terrible Erinni. The protagonist, desperate and distressed, flees from the anguish of the vengeful goddesses. In “Eumenidi”, Oreste flees to Delfi in order to seek advice from Apollo, but is followed up to the temple by Erinni who terrorize him. Apollo advices Oreste to go to Atene, carrying out purification rituals along the way and asking help from Athena, the only goddess that can free him from the persecution of the ctonie goddesses. The shadow of Clitemnestra appears in the temple. She has no peace, even in the other world, because of her sins, she wakes the Erinni up and reminds them of their duty of being vengeful goddesses. The Corifea of the Erinni is at par with Apollo in a confrontation in which the opposition between the ctonie divinity and that of the “new” olimpics is clear, then together with her companions she puts herself on the traces of Oreste and catches up with him at the feet of the simulacrum of Athena. The young goddess of Reason decides to help the unhappy argive prince, instituting a tribunal composed of the best athenian civics, in equal numbers. It will be their vote, together with that of the goddess, to give the final judgement. We participate in this way in the first democratic process of the history of man, in which Apollo and Corifea, before Athena and Areopagus, a place of confrontation, the central square in which politics above all is discussed, meet to discuss the fundamental ethical questions. At the parity of votes for and against Oreste, the vote of the goddess becomes decisive and saves Oreste. The final task of the goddess is to exorcise the anger of Erinni and that of Corifea, who was humiliated and offended by the decision of the “tribunal”. But not even this last appeasement triumphs and the calmed rage transforms Erinni into benevolent Eumenidi, the new custodian of the city.

4. F. Siracusano (2002). Preface in R. Romano. Il racconto della mente, Dedalo, Bari
5. R. Romano (2002) op.cit.
6. W.R. Bion (1992), Cogitation, Armando, Rome, 1996
7. E. Cassirer (1925), Il Linguaggio e Mito, Garzanti, Milano, 1961.
8. Eschilo, Orestea, BUR, Milano, 1995.
9. H. Guntrip (1972), Appendice all’edizione italiana di W.R. Bion “Apprendere dall’esperienza”, Armando, Roma, 1994.
10. V. Benedetto (1995), “Introduzione a Eschilo” in Oreste, op. cit.
11. Eschilo, op. cit.
12. Eschilo, op. cit.
13. V Benedetto (1995) op. cit.
14. Eschilo, op. cit.
15. F. Corrao (1981), Introd. Edizione italiana di W.R. Bion, Il Cambiamento catastrofico, Loescher, Torino, 1981.
16. C. Neri, A. Correale, P. Fadda (1994), Letture bioniane, Borla, Rome.
17. Eschilo, op. cit.
18. W.R. Bion (1965), Trasformazioni, Armando, Rome, 1973.

^19.       Such aspects can be further deepened through the presentation and discussion of a clinical case, which is not attached due to privacy reasons.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

V. Benedetto (1995), “Introduzione a Eschilo”,  in Orestea, op.cit.

W.R. Bion (1963) Gli elementi della psicoanalisi, Armando, Roma, 1979.

W.R. Bion ((1965), Trasformazioni, Armando, Roma, 1973.

W.R. Bion (1992), Cogitation, Armando, Roma, 1996.

E. Cassirer (1925), Il linguaggio e mito, Garzanti, Milano, 1961.

F. Corrao (1981), “Introduzione all’ edizione italiana” di W.R. Bion Il cambiamento catastrofico, Loescher, Torino, 1981.

Eschilo, Orestea, BUR, Milano, 1995.

H.Guntrip (1972), “Appendice all’edizione italiana”  di W.R. Bion, Apprendere  dall’esperienza, Armando, Roma, 1994.

C.Neri, A. Correale, P. Fadda (1994), Letture bioniane, Borla, Roma.

R. Romano (2002) Il racconto della mente, Dedalo, Bari.

F.Siracusano (2002), “Prefazione” in R. Romano Il racconto della mente, Dedalo, Bari.