The Affective Charge of Sulphur and Salt in Working with Compulsion
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8983248 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Giorgio Giaccardi (0009-0003-2037-9732, London UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 581-601 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Analytical Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8774 • E-ISSN: 1465-5922 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1468-5922.13024 |
| PMID | 39049498 |
| OpenAlex | W4400999931 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
The author presents a long analysis of a patient, Giulia, whose obstinate will to achieve evokes the workings of alchemical sulphur at its fieriest and a dread of its coniunctio with alchemical salt. Jung's description of these symbols in Mysterium Coniunctionis offers a useful imaginal perspective to clinical work in the area of compulsion and its possible transformations. Right from the start, the analytic relationship appeared to be mirrored and affected by this alchemical perspective. However, it was only after much time, uncertainty and emotional endurance that a fuller psychological experience of sulphur and salt could be accessed, allowing the analysis to take a more imaginative and mercurial turn. In the course of his work with Giulia the author has witnessed and experienced a range of intense affects-the many colours that the combustion of sulphur can generate-whether on the verge of unstoppable creation or ruthless destruction, often of archetypal intensity. This experience has been lived through and has undergone a transformative relation with salt, which until then had lived a dissociated existence in the fixed trauma of the compulsion and in a nocturnal underworld of tears
Aesthetics · Alchemy · Art · Charge (physics · Developmental psychology · Literature · Perspective (graphical · Physics · Psychoanalysis · Relation (database · Transformative learning · Visual arts · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Computer Science · Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |