In Depth Psychology it is understood whatever the ego does not accomodate is placed in shadow (personal unconscious)and in hospice I believe this shadow material tries to reach the light of day.
In Rose's life she deeply regretted not having a boyfriend when she was growing up. She felt she was fat and unattractive and this caused her to feel out of place and unable to fit in whith her peers. On top of this feeling of inadequacy she revealed to her best girlfriend thatshe had a crush on a particular boy and she was planning on asking him to her prom. Behind Rose's back her grilfriend batrayed her by asking the boy first and then telling Rose she had no good reason to do that accept to win him over because she knew Rose liked him. From that point on she cut off her relationship with the girlfriend and the boy and went on with her life never looking back.
These aspects of Rose's life were particularly shaming to her and she saw no need to delve into them. It was many months into our therapy that aspects of her life that were cast into shadow started coming forth. If these memories were placed into her uncosncious so too were her feels of anger, betrayal and desire for revenge. On the surface Rose proclaimed that her life would be free of such negative thoughts and that she saw herself as a good person. She would often tell me she believed in thinking about only the good things that happened to her, not the bad. This also was one of Rose's predominant attitude's toward the world and herself. She did not want to think about what was in her shadow including the betrayal of her best friend.
As the story of Godfather Death teaches us one's "king" or principle attitude toward the world must die to give way to the new. If we try to save it, as the physician in the story does, we disrupt the balance of the underworld and the physician must pay the ultimate price, death. But before this will occur the king's daughter, representing the feelings attached to the world view, is presented for death and she too is saved. These images remind us that we grieve the loss of the "status quo", literally meaning "what was before".
Another way of looking at the figures in the story is the king is the old world view and the daughter is the new. If the old is not allowed to die then the new must die because it was not given a chance to live. So the healer in us, represented by the physician, must let this death ensue for change to occur. Can you recall a new idea that you did not bring to fruition because it would require the demise of the old way?
Tomorrow I will discuss how Rose struggled with her world view and with letting it die so that the new perspective toward the world could help her die comfortably.
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Walden Pond at dawn
At the foot of the bed...
The number 13 represents the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next. The number 12 represents a complete cycle, 12 months in the year, etc. So we know from the beginning this story is about a significant change in one's life. Perhaps the father has reached his limit. He cannot handle more kids or does not have the money or food. Often our patients reach the end of their rope, their resources depleted financially and spiritually. It is often at times like this change comes about but not without pain and sacrifice.
What do we understand about this father's view of the world. It too has outlived it's purposefulness. We sense that his view of the world was cynical based on a hatred of poverty and of a God that would allow it. This influenced who would become godfather. He chose the godfather that treated all things equal, that more aligned with his new view of the world and how it should run. His heroic structure is breaking down. He worked hard all his life and figured he was due for a break but his life was becoming more compllkicated with no end in site.
It is important we understand that this man's heroic strcuture is breaking down. What worked before isn't working any more. Just as our bodies break down, just as our culture massages the younger version of us, our youthful side at a time when we are not feeling youthful, we are moving past that stage into a different stage.
Our culture doesn't seem to flatter us as much as we age. Ads speak to us about incontinence and sleeplessness, obesity and cardiac disease, dementia and assisted living. We are more and more on our own following a pathway that has more and more shadowy places and uncharted turns.
I will use this blog to explore dying from a perspective of analytical psychology. I will use mythology, fairy tale, dreams and case example to explore the transformative experience of dying. As we all move from the heroic life we have constructed toward death, that heroic structure must breakdown. Rose was a patient who taught me how to make stone soup. I will teach you how to make it here.
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Walden Pond at dawn
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About Me
- Donato Rosucci
- I am a nurse interested in helping people through the final stages of life by turning prima materia into gold.
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Godfather Death
At the foot of the bed...
Grimm's Fairy Tale- Godfather Death
As the Grimm's story goes...a man becomes the father of his 13th child, a son. Realizing he is depleted of resources he goes out onto the road to find a godfather for his son but the first person he comes upon is the Lord God and the man rejects him as godfather because the man does not like how God proportions wealth, leaving some very poor. The next he also rejects, the devil, because he leads man astray. He finally settles on the third person he sees and that is Death. He likes Death because he "makes all things equal". Noone escapes death.
So when the young godson reaches an appropriate age, the godfather tells him he will make him a famous physician and he will be quite successful if only he does as he is told. When he is called to see a patient, death will be there. If death is at the head of the bed then the physician may give the patient this herb that grows in the forrest and he will be healed. If however death is at the foot of the bed, the physcian must tell the patient that all remedies will be useless and no physician in the world can heal him. So the physician agrees and becomes very famous.
So famous that when the king gets ill, the physician is called to his bedside. Death is already there at the foot of the bed. The physician thinks if he can save the king he can become rich and inherit the kingdom so he turns the king around in bed and gives him the herb. The king lives. The godfather is furious and warns him never to betray him again.
But then the king's daughter becomes ill and the king pleads with kingdom that whoever should heal his daughter will inherit her hand in marriage and the kingdom. When the physician arrives he sees death at the foot of the bed. Without thinking he picks up the princess , turns her around and gives her the herb and saves her life.
With that the godfather takes him down to the underworld where there are many candles buring of all sizes. These candles represent the lives of everyone. The small candles are those of newborns and the very old and the large candles are of those in middle years who are married. Which one am I, asks the phsyciian. Godfather shows him a very small candle ready to burn out. The physician panics and pleads with his godfather to have mercy and put his light onto a larger candle. I cannot do that says death; I cannot burn a new candle without another going out. But death pretends to move the physician's light to another candle but lets it fall to the ground and the physician drops dead.
So when the young godson reaches an appropriate age, the godfather tells him he will make him a famous physician and he will be quite successful if only he does as he is told. When he is called to see a patient, death will be there. If death is at the head of the bed then the physician may give the patient this herb that grows in the forrest and he will be healed. If however death is at the foot of the bed, the physcian must tell the patient that all remedies will be useless and no physician in the world can heal him. So the physician agrees and becomes very famous.
So famous that when the king gets ill, the physician is called to his bedside. Death is already there at the foot of the bed. The physician thinks if he can save the king he can become rich and inherit the kingdom so he turns the king around in bed and gives him the herb. The king lives. The godfather is furious and warns him never to betray him again.
But then the king's daughter becomes ill and the king pleads with kingdom that whoever should heal his daughter will inherit her hand in marriage and the kingdom. When the physician arrives he sees death at the foot of the bed. Without thinking he picks up the princess , turns her around and gives her the herb and saves her life.
With that the godfather takes him down to the underworld where there are many candles buring of all sizes. These candles represent the lives of everyone. The small candles are those of newborns and the very old and the large candles are of those in middle years who are married. Which one am I, asks the phsyciian. Godfather shows him a very small candle ready to burn out. The physician panics and pleads with his godfather to have mercy and put his light onto a larger candle. I cannot do that says death; I cannot burn a new candle without another going out. But death pretends to move the physician's light to another candle but lets it fall to the ground and the physician drops dead.
The Number 13
The number 13 represents the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next. The number 12 represents a complete cycle, 12 months in the year, etc. So we know from the beginning this story is about a significant change in one's life. Perhaps the father has reached his limit. He cannot handle more kids or does not have the money or food. Often our patients reach the end of their rope, their resources depleted financially and spiritually. It is often at times like this change comes about but not without pain and sacrifice.
What do we understand about this father's view of the world. It too has outlived it's purposefulness. We sense that his view of the world was cynical based on a hatred of poverty and of a God that would allow it. This influenced who would become godfather. He chose the godfather that treated all things equal, that more aligned with his new view of the world and how it should run. His heroic structure is breaking down. He worked hard all his life and figured he was due for a break but his life was becoming more compllkicated with no end in site.
It is important we understand that this man's heroic strcuture is breaking down. What worked before isn't working any more. Just as our bodies break down, just as our culture massages the younger version of us, our youthful side at a time when we are not feeling youthful, we are moving past that stage into a different stage.
Our culture doesn't seem to flatter us as much as we age. Ads speak to us about incontinence and sleeplessness, obesity and cardiac disease, dementia and assisted living. We are more and more on our own following a pathway that has more and more shadowy places and uncharted turns.
The Story of Rose
Like the man in the story, Rose had reached the end of her rope by the time I met her. She was diagnosed with metastic cancer and placed in a nursing home. Her home was sold and all her posessions distributed amongst the family or sold.
She was in a wheelchair because her bones were too brittle for her to stand. She had already sustained multiple fractures. She was notorious in the nursing home for her controlling behavior. She would oversee the aides who cleaned her room or made her bed and often had them redo it if it did not meet her satisfaction.
She lived with her husband in a corner room in the nursing home. He had dementia and often tried to stand up from his wheelchair and he would fall. Rose had to watch him constantly. She would not leave her room unless she was being sent to the hospital for radiation treatment. She was angry at her husband because he would not listen to her. Sometimes she would scream at him because he was very hard of hearing. The referral to me came because the nursing home administrator was threatenning to call adult protective services with her behavior toward her husband. Rose told me when I met her that she had thown a podiatrist out of her room because he wouldn't listen to her.
Rose's view of the world was no longer serving her needs. She was 84 years old so her heroic structure was long held in place. But it was slowly breaking apart. Her husband was no longer listening to her now that they were in the nursing home. She felt a loss of control and had to settle for mediocre management of her things, her environment and what was most disturbing, she was treated as any other resident. This meant that she was talked down to, told what to do, and there was an overwhelming expectation of compliance to the rules of the house. This she simply could not abide. She demanded doctors treat her with respect.
She was in a wheelchair because her bones were too brittle for her to stand. She had already sustained multiple fractures. She was notorious in the nursing home for her controlling behavior. She would oversee the aides who cleaned her room or made her bed and often had them redo it if it did not meet her satisfaction.
She lived with her husband in a corner room in the nursing home. He had dementia and often tried to stand up from his wheelchair and he would fall. Rose had to watch him constantly. She would not leave her room unless she was being sent to the hospital for radiation treatment. She was angry at her husband because he would not listen to her. Sometimes she would scream at him because he was very hard of hearing. The referral to me came because the nursing home administrator was threatenning to call adult protective services with her behavior toward her husband. Rose told me when I met her that she had thown a podiatrist out of her room because he wouldn't listen to her.
Rose's view of the world was no longer serving her needs. She was 84 years old so her heroic structure was long held in place. But it was slowly breaking apart. Her husband was no longer listening to her now that they were in the nursing home. She felt a loss of control and had to settle for mediocre management of her things, her environment and what was most disturbing, she was treated as any other resident. This meant that she was talked down to, told what to do, and there was an overwhelming expectation of compliance to the rules of the house. This she simply could not abide. She demanded doctors treat her with respect.
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