“…any one individual may adopt a particular relational pattern; withdrawing, seeking or antagonistic. The relational pattern that informs a person’s life emerges from a matrix of factors including archetypal forces, biological predispositions, and developmental realities, as well as the element of randomness or chance – the mysteries of life.”
— The Matrix and Meaning of Character, P4
“The different archetypal landscapes that underlie our character structures can lead us into spiritual dialogue or can become consolidated defensively. A schizoid character may lead a person, for example, towards the experience of an inspiring image of an ordered universe, or it may become defensively consolidated into the haunting experience of the icy grip of the Snow Queen. Meanwhile, a borderline character structure may lead a person towards an experience of an ecstatic union with the divine or it may become defensively consolidated into a lifetime of being battered by archetypal affects.”
— The Matrix and Meaning of Character, P260
The Book
The Matrix and Meaning of Character
- An Archetypal and Developmental Approach
- Searching for the Wellsprings of Spirit
Authors
Nancy J. Dougherty, M.S.W. and Jacqueline J. West, PhD.
Publishing Info
Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (March 2007)
Paperback: 272 pages
ISBN: 0415403006
ISBN 978-0-415-40301-6 hbk
ISBN 978-0-415-40300-9 pbk
Purchase
Overview
Character structures underlie everyone’s personality. When rigidly defended, they limit us; yet as they become more flexible, they can reveal sources of animation, renewal and authenticity. The Matrix and Meaning of Character guides the reader into an awareness of the archetypal depths that underlie character structures, presenting an original developmental model in which current analytic theories are synthesized. The authors examine nine character structures, animating them with fairy tales, mythic images and case material, creating a bridge between the traditional language of psychopathology and the universal realm of image and symbol.
Each character structure holds at its core a paradox: it is a defensive structure, as well as an adaptive and prospective profile, informed archetypally and developmentally. Thus, our woundedness, our individuality, and our gifts are directly related. Within one’s character structure is the essence of what is needed for transformation and individuation. Indeed, in our own analyses and in our work with patients, we have observed consistently that transformation happens through our character structures, not in spite of them. It is through our woundedness, with its archetypal background, that we can access our deepest healing and creative energies and awaken the process of individuation.
Audience
This book will appeal to all analytical psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists who want to strengthen their clinical expertise. It will help clinicians to extend their clinical insights beyond a strictly behavioral, medical or cognitive approach, revealing the potential of the human spirit
Excerpt
Chapter 1 - Schizoid character structure, pp23-26 (PDF:112kb)
Table of Contents
Introduction — The Matrix from which character emerges
- The breath of Isis
- An archetypal and developmental Matrix of character structures
- The developmental phases
- The relational patterns
- The character structures
- Regression, shadow, and the intersubjective field
- Additional comments
- Notes
Part I — The withdrawing pattern
- Schizoid character structure
- The Little Match Girl
- Theoretical formulations
- Schizoid defense of encapsulation
- The goddess Sedna: icy abandonment, submerged creativity
- Notes
- Counter-dependent narcissistic character structure
- Peter Pan and the archetype of the puer aeturnus Fairy-tale sisters and puella psychology
- Freud and neo-Freudians on narcissism
- Case study: Joan — perfect image, shadowy daughter
- Jung and Jungians on narcissism
- Olympian virgin Athena: victorious and invulnerable
- Notes
- Obsessive-compulsive character structure
- Case vignette: working for what is right and compulsively doing what is wrong
- Developmental dynamics
- A conundrum of terminologies
- Theoretical antecedents
- Personal and archetypal dynamics
- “The Red Shoes”
- Case study: sleepless, skinny, tormented and guilty
- From Peter Pan and narcissism to Saturn and obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Apollo: in the human realm, justice needs mercy if the will to power does not predominate
- Summary of the withdrawing relational pattern
- Notes
Part II — The seeking pattern
- Borderline character structure: agony and ecstasy
- Introduction
- Allerleirauh: a tale of the soot-covered sun
- The literature
- Case study: Rachel — the sharp edge of a sword
- The mythological landscape of borderline chaos
- Final thoughts
- Notes
- Dependent narcissistic character structure
- Introduction
- Theoretical considerations
- A fairy tale: learning to serve the self
- Case study: Paul, a charming but desperate “courtier”
- Demeter and Persephone
- Final thoughts
- Notes
- Hysteric character structure
- Alice's world
- An introduction to the hysteric character structure
- Theoretical considerations
- Cassandra: gifted and cursed
- Jason: developing a personal connection to feelings
- Aphrodite: the golden goddess
- Summary of the seeking relational pattern
- Notes
Part III — The antagonistic pattern
- Psychopathic character structure
- Psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder
- Archetypal dynamics in the analytic relationship: the risk of a naive assessment
- Treatability and assessment
- Case study: Sue — a beguiling wolf in sheep's clothing
- The deadly princess and her wily suitor
- A challenge to action and the trickster within
- Notes
- Alpha narcissistic character structure
- The dynamics of envy and destruction of that which is perceived to be good
- Theoretical antecedents
- Jungian theory: developmental dynamics
- Case study: Elizabeth — pain, superiority, pain
- The mythic dimension: the darkest side of the human soul
- Notes
- Passive-aggressive character structure
- A sticky mess
- Three perspectives on one story
- Identifying the passive-aggressive character structure
- Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit: endless rounds of trickery
- The treatment of passive-aggressive dynamics
- Final reflections
- Summary of the antagonistic relational pattern
Conclusion
- Character structures, consciousness and spirituality
Notes
Bibliography
Author index
Subject index