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The Burn Wound of Eros
January 22, 2010 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm PST
In one subtext of the ancient love story of Psyche and Eros, “narcissism” and the “predatory” underline the romantic attitude of Eros, the god of love. His bride Psyche is entrapped within his magical paradise; she is his prey, his plaything to be used then discarded. As the story reveals, the transformation of narcissism in the romantic begins at the moment when Eros is violently burned – suffering a great loss and wound to his inflation. It is from the “burn wound” and separation of the lovers that Psyche – signifying the male’s psyche/soul/anima – develops resilience, maturity and can ultimately be awakened by a form of love, transcendent of narcissism and no longer bound by the mother complex.
Correspondingly in analysis, one can observe the narcissistic skin seared open, and the shattering of omnipotence in the traumatic encounter with an emerging, transcendent Other. This psychological wounding is a necessary process for recovering emotional life and developing the capacity to love in a man living at the surface of life.
Related Workshop: The Burn Wound of Eros
KEN KIMMEL, M.A., L.M.H.C., L.M.F.T. is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Seattle, with over thirty years of clinical experience. In recent years he has been working at finding the common threads connecting Classical Jungian Psychology with the Post-Jungian, Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Object Relations, through the study of narcissism, love and mystical traditions.