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Showing posts with the label Eros

The tiny table. 14th February 2022.

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"See that's what I see as a potential sticking point.  In the sense that normally in this space,  nothing is off the table  really"    [LINK] I take a miniature table from my bag - it is actually one of those plastic things you get with a pizza. and I say "There it is, there is the table". He is confused. I say, it is a symbolic table. I put it on the floor between us. I say: "There, the table has been placed - for things to be put upon", and he is still none the wiser. Me - "OK, no it is OK, I never expected you to understand it. You said something about 'not being able to put things on the table'.  He looks perplexed!  He asks, 'which table are we talking about? and I say. 'ah, it is your metaphor not mine'. He doesn't remember. I say,  "That's fine if you don't remember - but it is your metaphor - about 'not being able to put things on the table. So there is the table, to openly put things upon"...

Psychotherapy: Eros and magic.

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Plato believed that Eros is the desire that can lead us to a Higher truth wrapped within mystery, and Jung agreed. Meanwhile Freud had grabbed the scissors snipping cruelly at Eros... until there was nothing but blood and feathers falling around him like rubies and snow.   I am certain that many of psychotherapy's best theories and explanations are a continuation of much older concepts and ideas - repackaged so as to appear new.  So when ever Kit talked about fantasy 'with a PH '' I was trying to recall Ioan P Couliano's book:  Eros and Magic in the Renaissance.   Of course I wanted our sessions to lead us both to 'higher truths', and encounters with deeper mystery. This is the promise of Eros after all! But Kit, though seeped in mediaeval lore, and with a comprehensive knowledge of Christianity regarded therapy as disconnected from Eros - or he purposefully kept our conversations so. I mentioned Couliano several times in our sessions, and Kit didn't s...