After completing his training at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, Les moved to Sydney, Australia where he has a private practice.  He is a prodigious writer of Jungian books, and we are proud to announce the arrival of his latest book The Self in Jungian Psychology: Theory and Clinical Practice.

Les shared this synopsis of his book with us.  “The Self was elevated by Jung to be the symbol of psychological wholeness.  It is thus the cornerstone of his opus. As such, it is treated by Analytical Psychologists as an active force in the unconscious, leading each of us through an arduous process toward its realization.  However, its origin, nature, and substance remain vague leading to conflicting and incorrect commentary such that the Self continues to remain unnecessarily confusing. To understand the Self requires unravelling Jung’s thousands of statements to clarify it theoretically, and also to understand the manner in which it manifests in dreams and visions.  This book draws together Jung’s statements about the Self in all its contexts to identify what it indeed means and how it should be applied in modern analytical practice.”

Ashok Bedi, M.D., psychiatrist, Jungian analyst and author reviewed Les’ book: “In The Self in Jungian Psychology – Theory and Clinical Practice, Leslie Stein circumambulates the concept of the Self from a rich and varied perspective. Usually, the descriptions of the Self are like the blind men trying to describe an elephant; but here we have the whole elephant. Ancient as time, organizing and guiding consciousness and beyond consciousness, Leslie Stein’s rendering of the Self is finely cut and masterfully polished diamond, which will be an invaluable resource to scholars and seekers alike.”

Les is also a member of the Australian New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts and he is also a Training Analyst with the CG Jung Institute of Zurich. Les is the author of nine books, including Working with Mystical Experiences in Psychoanalysis: Opening to the Numinous, Becoming Whole: Jung’s Equation for Realizing God, and the Jungian allegory, The Journey of Adam Kadmon, A Novel. 

An “Introduction to Alchemy” class took place during the 2020 fall semester at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York,

in which we undertook the study of that obscure art in the midst of the pandemic, while this country, and most of the

rest of the world, were submerged in what the alchemists might have identified as a protracted nigredo: a dark and

difficult operation that can occur either at the beginning or further along in the opus.

What we discovered in the class, and what some of us further explored in this collaborative paper, is that alchemy continues to be relevant to the clinical practice of depth psychology; its strange images and metaphors speak to us in new ways that

resonate on both individual and collective levels.  The co-authors consider the personal and clinical implications

of various aspects of alchemy, including the importance of containment in both vessels and crucibles,

the ouroboros, and the utterly ambiguous and gender-fluid figure of Alchemy’s presiding deity, Mercurius.

The article will appear in the next edition of Quadrant, the Journal of the C.G. Jung Foundation in New York.

Gary Trosclair wears many hats here at the Jung Institute – teacher, supervisor, director of our Low-Fee Clinic and president of NYAAP – in addition to his private practice as a Jungian analyst in Manhattan and Westchester County, NY.   He is also the author of The Healthy Compulsive Project Blog  and two books, I’m Working On It in Therapy: How to Get the Most Out of Psychotherapy, published in 2015, and The Healthy Compulsive: Healing Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder and Taking the Wheel of the Driven Personality, just published in February 2020.  He discusses his latest book below with fellow Jungian analyst Wendy Neville Jones.

WNJ:   Your book describes masterfully the downside of being overly compulsive and the benefits of modifying and channeling this personality trait.  But historically, haven’t we needed highly compulsive, driven characters to move society in important new directions?   I’m thinking of people like Gandhi, Franklin Roosevelt or Steve Jobs, to mention a few, who sacrificed relationships, health and even longevity to pursue world-changing goals.  What are your thoughts on this?

GT:   Yes, I believe that many people who have compulsive dispositions have been indispensable to any progress we’ve made as a culture. I would add to your list Dr. Martin Luther King, who was driven to achieve social justice, despite the clear danger to his own life.

I consider this to be a manifestation of the teleology, the purpose and meaning, behind the compulsive personality.

As I say in my book, it’s not the people with the best ideas that direct the course of history, but the people with the most determination. Many of the movers and shakers of the world are compulsive. Part of the purpose of the book and the Healthy Compulsive Project blog are to help the people who are driven or compulsive to contribute what they can, rather than have their energy cause conflict and depression. This is also why I am making the distinction between a healthy compulsive and an unhealthy compulsive.

WNJ:   You describe how compulsions can provide a sense of control in a chaotic world.  Given how chaotic our country and world are right now, giving up control can seem pretty frightening.   Explain the paradoxical benefits of modifying this trait.

GT:   Certainly, control can be adaptive and reassuring at a time like this, when a microscopic organism is upending our entire world. In fact, I think that one of the reasons that compulsive aspects of the personality have evolved is that they are highly adaptive in situations like this. They have helped us to survive.

The problem with the way that some people use control is that they start to try to control everything out of habit. It becomes their default way of going about things in the world, and often what they really do need to control gets lost.

Unhealthy compulsivity is based on a quantitative life, rather than a qualitative life. Sure, theoretically you might be able to extend your life indefinitely now if you never touched anything again. But what for?

Jung said in The Red Book that he would not want to be a charioteer, because if he had all the control, a lot of really good things, things he would never have considered, would not come to pass. What we’re talking about here is the age-old mythological battle between the ego and the unconscious. The ego wants to maintain all the control, but without the rejuvenating qualities of the unconscious, our world contracts and dies spiritually.

WNJ:   You describe compulsion as a healthy urge that has become channeled into unhealthy attitudes and behaviors. Can you explain this further, and how it relates to Jung’s ideas about individuation?

GT:   Sure. The etymology of the word compulsive describes a driving urge that’s hard to resist. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact I’d argue that we need to listen to these urges to see what they are about. Coming from a Jungian perspective, I look for the seed of something meaningful in it. The problem is that the energy that comes with this urge can be hijacked for other purposes, most often the avoidance of shame or insecurity. If you’ve got the genetic predisposition for perfectionism, it would make sense that you would use it to try to stay out of trouble.

Jung wrote that we have a compulsion toward individuation—a deep, almost uncontrollable urge, to become who we have the potential to be, an urge to consciously create and evolve the human spirit. This is a powerful urge, since nature needs us to develop as individuals to prevent herd mentality. But this energy gets hijacked at times and it actually inhibits the growth of the personality instead of motivating it.

WNJ:  In several places you describe the dangers of someone with a Compulsive Personality using his own body, or relationships with significant others, as “vehicles” for acting out their compulsions.  Can you give an example of how this can be destructive?

GT:   To be more specific, in these cases I would say that compulsives may use their body, or other people, or their energy, as vehicles to prove their worth to themselves and others. It’s not so much that the compulsive urge is acted out, but all the energy behind the compulsive urge hijacks the body or relationships or talents to reassure themselves that they are decent, worthy people.

So some body-builders for instance, become compulsive about shaping their body in a certain way. Then the body become a vehicle to get them to a place of greater security. Similarly, someone who is born with natural caring, compassion and empathy may enlist that talent to reassure themselves that they are OK.

By the way, this is different from narcissism, where the individual needs to feel special. I find that compulsives are just trying to feel that they aren’t being bad or aren’t going to get in trouble, rather than trying to feel better than others.

WNJ:   Your description of the Compulsive Personality style sounds similar to Jung’s concept of the Complex — a psychological node of experiences, emotions and behaviors driven by an archetypal core.  You describe some of these compulsion-related archetypes, like the Hero, in your book.  Can you expand on the kinds and roles of archetypes in compulsive psychology?

GT:   Yes. I’ve seen a number of people whose compulsive energy gets sucked into a Prophet complex. They feel that they know what’s right and wrong and they feel a deep responsibility to tell everyone else what to do, no matter the price to themselves or their relationships.

Conscientiousness, by the way, has a genetic component and is one of the defining characteristics of the compulsive personality. And it can really get out of hand. The moral sense forms an archetypal core, and the personal experiences of childhood can shape that core into a very rigid complex.

We can also see the archetypal nature of compulsive control in literature and our contemporary mythologies; Frankenstein, Darth Vader in Star Wars, and Voldemort in Harry Potter are all trying to achieve control compulsively—and we see what it does to them. Each of these had heroic potential, and that potential was hijacked by their need to have control over life and death.

One compensatory archetype is Dionysus—the liberator—who helps to release the ego’s control and be open to more of the effects of the unconscious.

WNJ:   The word “compulsion” is also used in psychology to describe a defense mechanism that the personality uses to protect the ego from unpleasant or destabilizing thoughts and feelings — as you explain in your book.  As therapists we learn to respect the defenses as important — and often tenacious — structures that can keep the personality stable.  How difficult is it to modify a longstanding ego defense in therapy, and are there any dangers in approaching this task?  Have you had patients who are unable to tolerate moderating or relinquishing the defense of compulsion?  Have you found a role for medication in managing the anxiety and other negative emotions that may emerge?

GT:  Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder may be one of the most difficult personality disorders to change, partly because, as a defense, over-working is so welcomed in our culture. For many there is no motivation to change unless they get an ultimatum from a partner or a boss. You can achieve some change with that motivation, but not deep change. Deeper change comes when the individual wants to change and makes his or her personal growth the object of their compulsive energy, which — I would argue—is one of the deeper levels of what the compulsive urge is about–individuation.

Virtually none of my patients are on medication right now, but I know that some people do take it in an effort to help with their compulsiveness. I believe that medication is more effective for the specific compulsions, such as checking and washing, that often come with OCD, which is really a very different diagnosis, and one that’s often incorrectly given to people with OCPD.

I think that we do need to be realistic about what we can offer as therapists. We aren’t able to help everyone. And in some cases the defenses are so strong, and the incentive so small, that change may not occur. In a situation like that, there would be lots of resistance to the medication, and little motivation to take it.

But I haven’t seen any negative consequences of trying to modify the defense system. It seems when they truly need it, they hold onto it despite what the therapist does.

WNJ:   You talk about certain compulsions —  workaholism, excessive exercise, pornography use, social media checking —  that seem epidemic in our culture, and are especially visible in New York City.  How do we combat or modify these kinds of behaviors when they are not only socially and archetypally reinforced, but also produce endorphins, a feel-good brain chemical that can become addicting?  What does your book recommend?  Again, is medication helpful?

GT:   While I work primarily from a psychodynamic perspective, I feel that meditation, twelve-step programs,  and exercise can be very beneficial as first line defenses against some of the addictive compulsions.

Also, compulsives love to make lists and set goals, and these compulsive tendencies can be used in service of progressively diminishing the process addictions. I like to turn the compulsive energy onto the problem itself in a healthy way. My book has plenty of concrete, practical suggestions at the end of every chapter to help people set goals that can help them withdraw from the addictions.

But in the long run it comes down to recognizing and admitting that something is out of balance, and deciding what is most important. So, yes, in certain professions if you work less you will make less money. But what is the money for? If you say that it’s for your family, you need to ask what your family really needs and wants from you. In this type of case, saying that you’re providing for your family is often a rationalization for getting the hit from the achievements, status and financial payoff.

WNJ:   You mention that compulsive people tend not to marry other compulsives.  Why is this the case and how does this tend to play out in relationships?   Explain the role of Jung’s concept of Shadow in this dynamic.

GT:   What I’m beginning to recognize is that there are at least four different kinds of compulsives: authoritarians, people-pleasers,  procrastinating obsessives, and manic compulsives. When compulsives do marry each other, there are usually two different kinds getting together.

But more often, they need someone else who is significantly different to feel a little more whole.  Usually the compulsive needs someone who is more emotional, spontaneous and fun-loving. And the partner needs someone they can depend on. This is searching for our own Shadow elements, the part of us that we don’t want to see the light, the part of us that we don’t want others to see or, often, even acknowledge to ourselves. But being split off from this other side creates a deep longing that we often try to satisfy by finding it in someone else.

If a couple with these contrasting personalities is going to work out, they would each need to develop the Shadow elements that they have had the other person live out for them. This does go for the partner as well, since they may not have claimed their own productivity, determination, reliability, moral sense, or creativity.

WNJ:   You talk about the “trivialization” of the instinct toward psychological growth in our society, an important point in a culture where self-help practices have become tools of social branding.  Say more about this trend and why it is so important to address both personally and collectively.

GT:  There’s a constant tension in us between independent agency and community—developing one’s psychology for one’s own self as opposed to developing it so that we can be in service to the greater good. These are two evolutionary tendencies that have both had adaptive value, and we all struggle with trying to balance them.

It seems to me that in our current society, far too often what is promoted as psychological growth goes only to the level of individualism, and the third stage of the hero’s journey, returning to your community with the boon you found in the underworld, is forgotten.

There was some interesting research done on this subject in the 90s in which it was found that people who went to either extreme, either independent agency or service to community, were less physically healthy. I believe strongly that the same goes for our psychological health. This is one of those many examples of when Jung’s advice to “hold the tension of the opposites” is so valuable.

WNJ:   You use the concept of “purposelessness” in helping to heal the compulsive personality, another term that might seem paradoxical.  Can you expand on this?

GT:   Compulsives are so goal-oriented that it is helpful for them to let go of those goals to some extent. I don’t think the deeper purposes really goes away, but the ego needs to let the unconscious take over. The ego—and I think this was Jung’s over-arching point in all of his work—wants to control it all, but needs to begin to trust the unconscious so that it can actually help it achieve the really important goals. This feels purposeless to the ego. This is really hard for many of us to do. If it doesn’t scare you to try, you probably aren’t letting go enough.

WNJ:   You acknowledge that your book can be used as a self-help guide, but you strongly recommend therapy as well; describing therapy, among other things, as good practice in “delegating” for the compulsive person.   Explain this dynamic further.

GT:   Yes, so much of this is about control for the compulsive, and stepping into a therapist’s office feels like you’re handing over control—the steering wheel—to someone you’ve probably never met before. They tend to be so perfectionistic that they believe no one else will do it well enough. And they may not! Coming to terms with an imperfect therapist may be the most healing thing they can do.

This is one of the reasons that I like to try to explain the therapeutic process as I go along with a patient. As I pointed out in my previous book, I’m Working On It In Therapy, we don’t always explain the therapeutic process to our patients well enough. And for compulsive patients, who tend to be very independent and sensitive to control, this is a really important issue.

You can visit Gary’s blog at The Healthy Compulsive Project,  and you can hear his interview with Dr. David Nay Nuys at Shrink Rap Radio here.

Sarah Jackson, MFA, MA, LP

It is my pleasure to report that, after spending the last week in August in Vienna attending the Twenty-first IAAP conference, Depth Psychology and Jung’s legacy are alive and flourishing.

When I approached the front steps of the University of Vienna for the first time and saw the large banner announcing the conference, I felt a surprising burst of pride and excitement. Even more surprising was the fact that I continued to feel that way throughout the week, as did many of the participants I spoke with. It was the largest Congress to date, with 1400 Jungian analysts and trainees in attendance from all over the world.

The timely theme of the Congress — “Encountering the Other, Within Us, Between Us, and in the World”—  inspired a multitude of presentations. The plenary sessions each morning were both challenging and thoroughly engaging. The only problems  we faced were choosing from among the twelve or thirteen sessions going on simultaneously in each of the three afternoon breakout periods, and finding our way around the labyrinthine building.

Four NYAAP analysts presented papers at the conference of the International Association for Analytical Psychology in Vienna this August: Les Stein, Sarah Jackson, Beth Darlington and Ilona Melker. Their papers were excellent, well-attended and well-received.

Les Stein: The clinical impact of urban terror on the self

“The constant, recurring stress of urban living has been exacerbated in past decades by opioid addiction, homelessness, family dysfunction, crime, widening income inequality, and displacement of populations, with resultant mental health issues manifested by increasing suicide rates and depression. The problems have reached the level where they are considered a form of trauma – “urban trauma”. When there is overt urban terror as well, the urban trauma adds to the destructive effect and yields “complex urban trauma” that is not easily treatable.

The definitions offered over time of the Jungian “Self” need to be rethought in order to find an effective treatment for complex urban trauma. Coming closer to Jung’s real view of the Self provides a possible method of dealing with the effects of terror attacks in urban areas.”

Sarah Jackson: The Otherness of Art

“I shared a break-out session with Linda Carter, from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, and we had the honor to be introduced by Marian Dunlea, whose new book “Bodydreaming” [Routledge, 2019] was launched at the Congress. My presentation, entitled “Images of the Other in Visual Art”, was an informal discussion of a group of art objects, some depicting encounters with an Other or Otherness, and others which were in themselves so strange and alien that the endeavor to find their beauty and meaning provided kind of analogue to working with images in dreams.”

Beth Darlington–The Story of Cain: The Myth We Would Like to Forget

“The title of my presentation at the 2019 IAAP Congress in Vienna was “The Story of Cain: The Myth We Would Like to Forget.”  It focused on Cain’s question to God after killing his brother Abel, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Genesis does not provide an explicit answer to that question, but Cain’s exile and punishment implicitly suggest that the answer is “Yes.”  Our current social and political context demonstrates the relevance of Cain’s question to our own times, with hate crimes and numerous blatant attacks on our metaphorical brothers and sisters.  Lord Byron’s adaptation of Cain’s story in 1821 introduces narrative changes that make Cain’s individuation possible and enable us to understand the transformative power of compassion when we can face our guilt and learn from our mistakes.”

Ilona Melker: Tower on the Marsh–Dark Coniunctio as Other

“The factors that come together in the coniunctio are conceived as opposites, either confronting one another in enmity or attracting one another in love.” C.G. Jung  Mysterium Coniunctionis

We will consider when love is replaced by enmity and the coniunctio is pushed into the realms of anxiety and depression, activating the darkness within psyche; its nigredo. As Jung pointed out “the coniunctio can take more gruesome forms than the relatively harmless one depicted in the Rosarium.”

We look at the role of how familiar early traumas help activate the dark Dionysian bondage of pleasure-pain in sadomasochism. In this context we will consider a time in Christiana Morgan’s life  as well as some contemporary clinical material  from the presenter’s case material.”

On June 2 NYAAP voted to accept Sanford Drob, Ph.D., as an Honorary Member of NYAAP.

Sandy has contributed to the field of analytical psychology as both teacher and author. Some of his contributions are manifest in three of his most recent books:

Kabbalistic Visions: C.G. Jung and Jewish Mysticism, (2010),

Reading the Red Book: An Interpretive Guide to C.G. Jung’s Liber Novus (2012)

Archetype of the Absolute: The Unity of Opposites in Mysticism, Philosophy and Psychology. (2018)

His recent opus, Archetype of the Absolute of which he spoke about at our on June 2^nd 2019, was reviewed by our fellow NYAAP member Leslie Stein in the forthcoming issue of Jung Journal:

It takes a particular type of person, or rather a particular person, to write a complete work on this impossible subject that requires both psychological and philosophical expertise, as well as a willingness to undertake a mystical quest to approach a unity—the “Archetype of the Absolute”—to contain the opposites In terms of expertise, Sanford Drob has the required unique combination of philosophy, psychology, and understanding of Jungian thought, as he holds PhDs in both philosophy and clinical psychology, has written extensively on Kabbalah, and is on the faculty of the C. G. Jung Institute of New York. The work, therefore, crosses seamlessly between psychology, philosophy, Jungian thought, and mysticism, and for that reason alone will become a classic, historical marker for Jung’s notion of the coincidentia oppositorum.

Sandy taught a course on the Red Book at our Institute in 2015 using material from his book, Reading the Red Book: An Interpretive Guide to C.G. Jung’s Liber Novus, and recently completed a seminar at the C.G. Jung Foundation: The Master Archetype: Integrating the Opposites in Life, Thought and Psychotherapy, based on his more recently published book.

As a painter Sandy marshals the aesthetics and some of the techniques of the “old masters” and filters them through the spirit of contemporary experience, philosophy and theology. You can view some of his work at his website. 

In addition to being an artist, Sandy holds doctorates in philosophy from Boston University, and clinical psychology from Long Island University, and for many years served as the Senior Forensic Psychologist and Director of Psychological Assessment at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He is currently on the Core Faculty of the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology of Fielding Graduate University, where he teaches classes in Humanistic/ Existential psychology, forensic psychology and psychological assessment.  He maintains an active practice in forensic psychology and psychological assessment in New York City.

Sandy’s warm personality is well known to many of us, and we are happy to welcome him to the NYAAP community.

On Sunday, June 2 NYAAP voted unanimously to welcome Hilda Seidman, M.F.A., L.P., as a new member. Hilda is a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, and has a private practice on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan.

Her training thesis was entitled Redeeming the Feminine Divine: Encountering Gnostic Sophia, a copy of which is available in the Kristine Mann Library. This subject also led her to receive The Kristrine Mann Research Award. She presented the results of her research in a paper entitled The Anamnesis of Sophia. 

She recently gave a talk entitled Silence  for the C.G. Jung Foundation as well as teaching an advanced seminar expanding and exploring the Gnostic influence on Jungian psychoanalytic theory.

She holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of Washington’s Professional Actors’ Training Program. Her strong background in acting and education have both served as excellent preparation to do deep, sensitive Jungian analytic work. We’re very happy to have her join us. 

The C. G. Jung Institute of New York, the training institute of the New York Association for Analytical Psychology, is known internationally for its commitment to excellence.

In an effort to enrich both Americans and Chinese, the Institute hosted 25 students from the People’s Republic of China led by their professor Gao Lan Shen on April 14, 2019. The event was organized  Jungian Analyst, Beth Darlington. In the morning, Dr. Darlington guided the group to the Kristine Mann Library where they were given a tour by the librarian Lorna Peachin. They then went to the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) for a tour by curator Ami Ronnberg. In the afternoon, the group watched a film called Women in China: Up Against the Wall, by Jungian Analyst Laurie Schapira. And Gary Trosclair,  president of the New York Association for Analytic Psychology (NYAAP) and jazz musician, presented a paper on the Dionysian Foundations of Jazz.  Analysts-in-training, studying the expressive therapeutic technique known as sand tray with Ilona Melker, joined the group to hear Dr. Shen discuss her experience of working with the victims of the 2008 earthquake in Szechuan.

Jungian analyst and NYAAP President Gary Trosclair weaves together Jung’s ideas, contemporary trends, and both ancient and modern mythology to offer a perspective on our need to control. His essay was originally posted at www.thehealthycompulsive.com.

Carl Jung famously wrote that the gods have become diseases. What he meant was that because we no longer consciously acknowledge the powerful forces we used to call gods and goddesses, they’ve gone underground and manifest in our physical and mental ailments. However fantastic they might seem, they are still forces to be reckoned with.

Such is certainly the case with the Greek goddess Ananke.

Who?

My point exactly. We don’t recognize her because she doesn’t fit in with the need to control.

Ananke: Goddess of Fate, Inevitability and Compulsion

The ancient Greeks believed in the force of fate, inevitability and compulsion.  They personified this force as a goddess stronger than all other forces and called her Necessity, or Ananke. We can’t override her with personal control, no matter how hard we try.

Ananke determines aspects of the world outside of us and inside of us. The outer issues are more obvious: death, illness, natural disasters, obligations, traffic, subway delays, clueless people, and recalcitrant children.

When we try to resist these inevitable aspects of outer life, Ananke takes over our inner life too: our need to control the uncontrollable makes us compulsive in the worst sense, so much so that we actually develop an illness.

Our Modern Disease: OCPD, Compulsive Personality, and The Need To Control

We don’t much like Ananke these days. We modern folk like to believe that that we control everything. This is particularly true in American culture, and even more true of people who are unhealthily compulsive, those who are especially and infamously controlling. They like to think that if they work, plan, obsess, rush, harangue or tailgate enough they can make things happen in the outer world the way they should happen. Mixed results ensue, quite simply because we can’t control everything.

Those who ignore Ananke, those who cannot accept that some things are out of their control and try to take control,  end up losing control to control. They become compulsive in their efforts to deny her. They think they’re driving, but they are driven by Ananke. Without realizing it they try to become her.

This is how the goddess becomes a disease.

The medical term for this disease is obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). OCPD is the most frequently occurring of the ten personality disorders listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. There are many reasons why people develop OCPD, but I believe that the most common is that natural and healthy tendencies to be driven and hardworking are hijacked to avoid the feelings that would otherwise come with acknowledging limits.

Anakin Skywalker denies Ananke and becomes Darth Vader

I can think of no better example of trying to shun Ananke than the characters from Star Wars young Anakin Skywalker and the sinister adult he becomes, Darth Vader. Star Wars is our contemporary mythology. It lays bare our culture’s attempts to control. If you didn’t see the prequels you might not know what’s behind all this.

At 6 years old Anakin Skywalker is a very promising young boy, ambitious and talented to an extreme. He’s recruited to be a Jedi warrior, and has to leave his home and his mother. Later, after he’s been away training for some years, his mother is captured and tortured. He tries to rescue her but arrives just in time to see her die.

Devastated that he couldn’t save her, he takes his skills to the dark side, eventually becoming Darth Vader–with the promise that he will be able to keep his wife from ever dying. He doesn’t mourn the loss of his mother and his limitations, but instead tries to take control over the world. He’ll stop at nothing to do so. He ends up indirectly bringing about the very thing he fears. His wife dies just after giving birth. Some say she died as the result of a broken heart from Anakin turning to the dark side.

This transformation is not unusual for people who are born talented and Driven. Their skills are hijacked to try to cope with their fears of facing into disturbing feelings.

Genes, Compulsion and Fate

Ananke rules more of our Fate than just death. She also determines the biological limitations of life, the needs that all humans have, including the need to eat, sleep, drink and procreate.

It also includes personality traits specific to you, who you are naturally, your strengths and calling, which is partially the result of your genes. No matter how sincere your parents were when they told you that you could be anything you wanted to be, they were wrong. For instance, people who are naturally compulsive, driven, perfectionistic and conscientious will never become laid back. And that can be a good thing, if you recognize it and work with it. 

Befriending Ananke: Working with Compulsion

The Greeks personified forces such as Ananke so that they could recognize and come to terms with them. Naming something limits its power. Once you identify such a force, you know who or what you’re dealing with, and you can make the necessary accommodations. The standard response in their time was to burn incense, slaughter a lamb, or make some other sort of sacrifice to save their soul from an ignoble fate. These rituals might seem ridiculous to us today, but they fostered an attitude of acceptance that is psychologically adaptive.

We have other options now. If we can acknowledge that we are not completely free, we actually become freer to deal with the limitations of both the outer world and the inner world in a more mindful and constructive way. You can’t defy death, even with the will and courage of a Jedi, but you can slow down enough to savor your life and your loved ones. You can’t force yourself or anyone else to do everything exactly the way you think it should be done, but you can do your best to live with integrity and meaning.

And if you’re constitutionally Driven, you do need to work, produce, create and fix—but you don’t have to go crazy doing it. Recognizing Ananke can save you a lot of trouble: The next time you feel yourself compelled to try to achieve the impossible (be perfect, change other people, or control the future), recognize that there is much that’s out of your control and face the feelings that you’ve been trying to avoid by being so controlling.

None of this is to say that we should roll over and give up or not stand up for ourselves or what we believe is right. We do have some control and can make the world a better place. But when we see our limits, we are better prepared to accomplish what is within our control.

Originally posted at www.thehealthycompulsive.com.

In this post Alexandra Krithades, NYAAP member and President of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, describes the role that she feels psychoanalysis needs to play in helping clients deal with the impact of dramatic social change, and the role that psychoanalysts themselves must play in this era. Her essay was originally posted at TherapyRoute.com. 

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