Why did Orpheus look back?

Journal title PSICOANALISI
Author/s Michael Parsons
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2021/2
Language Italian Pages 10 P. 101-110 File size 177 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSI2021-002007
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The Author uses the mith of Orpheus and Eurydice to reflect on the necesssity for the co-existence in the psychic life of time and timelessness, concrete perception and creative apper-ception, in the sense of Winnicott and Enid Balint. Orpheus must turn to look for Eurydice to ceck with his own eyes that she is really there, because he is not able to dream her. Eurydice, therefore, represents Orpheus’s potential vitality, where reality and imagination merge; while Eurydice’s return to the underwordl symbolises the loss of imaginative and creative vitality. So, in bionian terms, the analysts need to dream their patients to help their patients to dream themselves.

Keywords: objectives of psychoanalysis, vitality, time/timelessness, creative apperception.

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Michael Parsons, Perché Orfeo si è voltato indietro? in "PSICOANALISI" 2/2021, pp 101-110, DOI: 10.3280/PSI2021-002007