The erotics of blame 171

Jung, C. G. (1921). Psychological Types. Coll. Wks 6.

(1934)- 'The state of psychotherapy today'. Coll. Wks 10.
(1944)- Psychology and Alchemy. Coll. Wks 12.
(1950). 'Concerning rebirth'. Coll. Wks 9, i.
(1951)- 'The psychology of the child archetype'. Coll. Wks 9, i.
(1953/1966). Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Coll. Wks 7.
(1955)- Mysterium Coniunctionis. Cloll Wks 14.
(1956). Symbols of Transformation. Coll. Wks 5.
(1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York. Random
House.
(1976). The Visions Seminars: Book One. Zurich. Spring Publi-
cations.
Klein, M. (1948/1978). 'On the theory of anxiety and guilt'. In Enuy
and Gratitude & Other Works: i946-ig63. New York. Delacorte
Press/Seymour Lawrence.
Nietzsche, F. (1973). Beyond Good and Evil. Harmondsworth. Pen-
guin.
foumal of Analytical Psychology 1992, 37, 173-185

OEDIPUS IN GETHSEMANE:
Archetypal aspects of homosexuality
C. T. FREY-WEHRLIN, Zurich

Whenever we make presentations in public as analysts, there is fair

reason to assume that some portion of our material is autobiographi-
cal. The day-to-day work with analysands involves our subjectivity
and affects our very own being. The same applies to those aspects
of our experience which induce us to conceptualize at the theoretical
level and, because of their very fascination, force us to clarify them
so as to fit them, whenever possible, into the broader context of our
world view. In this respect we follow the example of our prede-
cessors, the alchemists: from the laboratory of the daily consulting
room we proceed to the oratorium of theoria for a more spiritual view
so as to retrieve our bearings, placed at risk time and again by the
chaos of the prima materia.
To a considerable extent this applies to what is to follow. I intend
to present my reflections on the reactions I had to certain events in
my life which were of tremendous importance for me; understanding
them, therefore, became more than a mere need. It goes without
saying that I can justify imposing on you to read about my personal
calamities only to the extent that I manage to draw the kind of
conclusions from my experience that are of general significance and
if all goes wellprovide you with some new food for thought, a
new perspective. In other words, I will have to tread the narrow
borderline between what is relatively unproductive, so-called 'scien-
tific objectivity' in our professional field, and exhibitionism.
A rather odd theme runs right through the history of depth psy-
chology. It crops up in every generation of male analysts, irrespective
of whether they were great pioneers or average members of the
profession. I am speaking only of male analysts, because up to now
the phenomenon I shall describe here has occurred only between men,
as far as I know. At the same time, it would seem more natural to
leave discussion of the corresponding female genealogies to female
colleagues.
What these men have in common is a close friendship with a male
representative of the older and/or younger generation which tends to

/i '99^ The Society of Analytical Psychology

174 C- T. Frey-Wehrlin

last for a period of many years and even deepens before coming to
an abrupt end. In some cases the 'end' seems to be caused by appar-
ently 'rational' events, for example, scientific disagreements; but this
is only what appears on the surface. Looked at more closely, the
rational explanation is in no way sufficient to justify the personal
break; the violence and finality of this clearly show that it must have
originated in the emotional depths of those involved. This is also
indicated by the fact that as a rule both parties are deeply wounded,
and in some cases the event leaves deep marks on the subsequent
course of their lives.
At the beginning of the series, not unlike a prelude, we have the
relationship between Freud and, as Roazen (1975, p. 76ff) put it, his
'tutor, leader and support', Breuer. Freud's senior by fourteen years,
Breuer was his brother-in-arms during the early years of psycho-
analysis. Jointly they wrote Studies on Hysteria, to which Breuer
contributed the case of Anna O.who discovered the cathartic
methodas well as a theoretical essay. In the light of the opposition
which the book aroused in medical circles, it was most important for
Freud not to stand alone, even though Breuer suffered more than he
from colleagues' rejection of their new theory. It must be remembered
that Breuer enjoyed a considerable scientific reputation, which pro-
vided most welcome protection under the circumstances. Breuer's
support of Freud also extended to finances; he had loaned him a fairly
substantial sum of money. In 1896, the year Freud's father died, his
feelings for Breuer changed and led to a break. Jones, like Roazen,
agrees that none of their intellectual disagreements was weighty
enough to put a wedge between the two men. Otto Rank suspected
some connection between the rupture and the death of Freud's father.
Right at the beginning of the line we come upon this theme, which
will crop up and will have to be looked at closely time and again in
this paper.
The emotional background becomes crystal clear in the generation
that followed. In 1907, Jung wrote to Freud: 'Actuallyand I confess
this to you with a struggleI have a boundless admiration for you
both as a man and as a researcher, and I bear you no conscious
grudge. So the self-preservation complex does not come froiri there;
it is rather that my veneration for you has something of the character
of a "religious" crush. Though it does not bother me, I still feel it
disgusting and ridiculous because of its undeniable erotic undertone. This
abominable feeling comes from the fact that I was the victim of a sexual
assault by a man I once worshipped' (McGuire 1974, 49J, my italics).
The intensity of Jung's defensiveness against this 'erotic undertone'
is quite striking. But somehow the complex managed to escape the
repression and to come to the notice of the Conscious. That this was
Oedipus in Gethsemane 175

so was no doubt primarily due to the strong positive transference on

Freud as a teacher; the actually inadmissible content became admiss-
ible once it had entered the protective temenos of transference. Obvi-
ously, we are anxious to know how Freud replied. Will he confme
himself to mere reference to the general prevalence of human bisexu-
ality and its expression in this latent form of homosexuality? (I am
using 'homosexuality', 'bisexuality' and 'homoeroticism' as syn-
onyms.) Oranticipating Hillmanwill he draw attention to the idea
that 'homosexual advances made . . . by the psyche are precisely the
healing that could open (man) up to taking in another spirit, being
penetrated, opened' (Hillman 1983, p. 185)? Unfortunately, our curi-
osity gets us nowhere. For precisely this reply is missing from Jung's
so carefully preserved correspondence with Freud. . . . It would seem
that defence carried the day after all. The significance of the principle
governing Jung's attitude will soon become apparent.
This takes us to the next stop on our 'genealogical trip'. In Jung
and the Story of Our Time Laurens van der Post (1978, p. 229) mentions
the fact that, aside from a 'world of women', Jung was surrounded
by just a few men and that it was mainly C. A. Meier who was
entrusted with the task of representing Jung in the world. Meier was
not only Jung's successor at the ETH (Federal Institute of Tech-
nology) but also the first Chairman of the Board of the Jung Institute
in Zurich and the first President of the IAAP. From among his
numerous publications I wish to mention only The Psychology of C.
G. Jung (1984). Van der Post underscored the factand rightly so
that Meier never wavered in his support of Jung's work. By chance,
however, I was in a position to compare the English edition of van
der Post's book with the American edition, published a year before.
In the American edition van der Post continued the above-mentioned
statement, saying: 'He and Jung were to part immediate company
after some years. I never knew or asked why, out of respect for the
silence both men felt compelled to keep on the subject' (1977, p.
236). I have no idea why van der Post expunged this remark for the
purpose of the British edition. The fact, however, tallies well with
Freud's lost reply to Jung, and one cannot help assuming that, in this
case too, emotional reasons were responsible for the ending of a
personal relationship.
Now let us turn to what appears to beat least for the time
beingour last stop. C. A. Meier was my training analyst and, once
the analysis had ended, we developed a friendship which lasted for
roughly thirty years and also manifested itself in outer reality. Meier
actively supported the founding of the CHnic and Research Centre
for Jungian Psychology which I had launched, and he took on the
chairmanship of the board. The Zurichberg Clinic, affiliated with
176 C. T. Frey-Wehrlin

the Centre, carried on the clinical tradition of Jungian psychology

successfully for more than a quarter of a century and cared for many
more than a thousand in-patients during those years. In the mid-
1980s, however, our relationship got into a crisis. The reasons for it
were of a purely emotional nature, and, given the example of my
illustrious predecessors, I am sure you will dispense me from having
to give you an account of the details! However, the break that fol-
lowed eventually did not merely affect our personal relationship but
also led to my enforced resignation from the Clinic. Since Meier's
own withdrawal, which soon followed my own, the foundation has
been directed by a board of directors without a single member
interested in Jungian psychology. The spirit which has since prevailed
in the Clinic seems to carry the stamp of biologically orientated
psychiatry, as we fmd it everywhere nowadays. This means that the
destructive factor we have been concerned with today backfired on
Jungian psychology, or at least on one aspect of its manifestation and
effectiveness in the outer world.
It would seem that, as I mentioned at the beginning of this paper,
the theme of long-lasting, close friendships between analytical fathers
and sons that have a negative, or even destructive, ending seems to
run through five analytical generations. Although I have here pursued
only one genealogical branch, I fear it does not stand alone; we are
in fact faced with an entire family tree with a number of ramifications.
For the purpose of this paper I cannot pursue the matter in more
detail. But it might be worth mentioning that Jung's published corre-
spondence contains remarkably few letters addressed to male col-
leagues living in Zurich, even though we can be sure that such letters
were written. It is, however, urgent to fmd out what we can do to
avoid the effects of this disastrous heritage for the next generation of
analysts, considering that all of us have students, whom we would
wish to spare such a fate. Ultimately, this w^as the most important
reason that motivated me to tackle this sensitive issue, or complex.
From the analytical point of view it seems almost trite to point
out that the apparently inexorable course taken by master-disciple or
father-son relationships must be due to an insufficiently recognized
transference/countertransference problem. Yet, it is quite in line with
the fact that, until late in the 1950s, it was rare for a Jungian to
present any detailed case study, and it was not until 1955 that the
subject of countertransference was first placed 'on the agenda' by our
London colleagues with the foundation of the Journal of Analytical
Psychology. But in saying this w^e cannot do more than note the fact
that in those days some analyses were lacking in rigour, and I there-
fore believe that we may get a better perspective on our problem if
Oedipus in Gethsemane 177

we compare it with other cases that took a similar, although not

identical, course.
In recent years, Carotenuto's discovery and publication of the
Sabina Spielrein diaries as well as her correspondence with Jung (1982)
led to extensive discussion of Jung's relationship with Spielrein. At a
meeting of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology the diary of
A Secret Symmetry was discussed in an effort to shed further light on
the matter. There was general agreement among the participants that
Jung had committed a major analytical blunder and that the way he
tried to wheedle out of the affair, in his worry over his analytical
and medical reputation, was anything but perfectly ethical. Just as in
the case of Jung's well-known relationship with Toni Wolff, which
had been known for some time, what had originally been an analytical
relationship ultimately turned into a love affair. Yet, in comparing
the evolution of the above-mentioned cases of women with those of
the men I referred to in our genealogical line, it becomes apparent
that the effects on their development were not nearly so destructive,
even though they also went through critical periods. Jung, as well as
the two women, went through many trials and tribulations but,
ultimately, all of them managed to remain at least on speaking terms.
As far as we know, Toni Wolff remained close to Jung to the end
of her life, while Sabina Spielrein also found her way back to an
acceptable distance, which allowed for some sort of friendship with
Jung. We cannot fail to notice the contrast between the two groups
of analytical relationships that went wrong.
I feel that you do not have to go so far afield to find the reasons
for the difference in these developments. The cases in which the
outcome was relatively harmless were heterosexual relationships
whereas those involving a more destructive process were homosexual
ones. The assumption that there is a causal relationship seems likely
in the sense that a heterosexual relationship of this kind tends to have
a more harmless outcome, while the homosexual one is more likely
to become destructive.
This assumption takes us straight to the question about the Jungian
attitude towards homosexuality. Let us first take a look at Jung's
own writings. Here, we have the possibihty of turning to Hopcke's
recent study. In his essay in the fournal of Analytical Psychology (1988),
Hopcke points out that in his Collected Works Jung referred to homo-
sexuality a grand total of fifteen timesin other words, barely once
per volume! It would not seem that Jung displayed any major interest
in the subject and we are reminded of the lines in the above-quoted
letter to Freud and the missing reply.
The generation that followed Jung cannot be considered to have
contributed a great deal on the subject. Interest in homosexuality
178 C. T, Frey-Wehrlin

appears not to have been aroused until the third generation, to wit
James Hillman and Peter Schellenbaum. I am very pleased to note
that the situation has begun to change in the past decade, and I hope
that this change in attitude wall also have its positive effects on the
practice of analysis (see also Anon 1989).
After our brief glance at what seems like a more hopeful future, I
suggest that we turn back to the problem in hand. It is my hypothesis
that the long-lasting lack of interest in homosexuality in the past is
the result of a repression, which is incomparably stronger than the
repression of any heterosexual impulses.
Homosexuality is subject to tremendous social taboos, which pro-
hibit it even from being consciously perceived, let alone from identi-
fication with the offender. It is worth noting that the taboo is not
confmed to Jungian analysts by any means. The following quotation
from the letter of a (Freudian) psychoanalyst may be pertinent to the
situation in general: 'Insofar as I can assess the situation in my neck
of the woods, I would say that in therapy the problem is solved by
avoidance of the hot potato by both analyst and analysand; I suspect
that this particular technique of avoidance was first acquired in train-
ing analysis.'
Whenever a problem is subject to such forceful taboos, there must
be reasons other than social opposition for the resistance. It is there-
fore probable that behind the issue at stake there is an archetype
which is so threatening to the conscious mind that it has to be
defended against, no matter what. In what follows I therefore intend
to ferret out some aspects of this archetype as well as the images it
evokes.
I am thinking, for example, of one of the themes we fmd in the
story of Laius, Oedipus' father. Laius was only a year old when his
father died. Later he had to flee from Thebes and was given hospi-
tality by Pelops, the son of Tantalus. Pelops entrusted Laius with the
education of his son, Chrysippus. But Laius was enchanted by the
handsome boy and, while instructing him in chariot-driving, he kid-
napped him and carried him off to his home town, Thebes. This was
the reason for which Euripides named Laius the 'inventor of homo-
erotic passion'. Pelops cursed the kidnapper: 'He might never beget
a son, or if he did, by that son should he be slain' (Kerenyi 1959,
pp. 89ff, reference to Plu. Th. 5d). Chrysippus continued to live at
Laius' home in Thebes even after Laius had chosen Jocasta as his
consort. For love of the handsome boy Laius neglected his spouse,
thus provoking the ire of Hera, who set the Sphinx upon Thebes as
punishment. When Chrysippus ultimately died a violent death, Apol-
lo's hatred was aroused against Laius, given that the god was the
protector of boys and tender youths.
Oedipus in Gethsemane 179

I was struck by the fact that the antecedents of the Oedipus myth
are relatively unknown among analysts. It just may be that this is
not a coincidence. Depth psychology concentrated on the figure of
Oedipus. As a result, the fact that underlying the mother-son incest
and the murderous father-son relationship we have the homosexual
sin of Laius, the hero's father, was overlooked. It was a sin inasmuch
as, for love of the youth, Laius neglected love for his wife, a collec-
tively recognized value, which is represented by no one less than the
goddess Hera. Nowadays, we no longer give the names of Greek
gods to our dominant values. This does tiot alter the fact that homo-
erotic fascination is the factor underlying the more evident mother
son incest and the murderous father-son relationship, aside from the
fact that it was the trigger that set in motion the whole tragedy. The
question that now arises is whether the drama would take the same
(well-known) course, if the fascination did not have to be hidden, if
it was not repressed. Repression inevitably means that Chrysippus
may not live, that he is put to a violent death in Laius' homeand
this arouses Apollo's ire. In other words, is there any way, any
possibility of allowing Chrysippus to remain alive and thus changing
the turn of events? Permitting Chrysippus to stay alive may mean
no more and no less than allowing the homosexual impulse to live.
Admitting it might mean giving it a chance to grow, to grow up,
in fact, for the purpose of revealing its nature and its meaning. At
this stage I merely want to raise the question without trying to
answer it straightaway. For the moment, I want us to look for other
images which might be pertinent to this disturbing archetype.
Jewish culture offers, in fact, one such image. Chapter 22 of Genesis
tells the story of the akedah, the binding of Isaac. Yahveh put Abrah-
am's loyalty to the test by requesting him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
The 'trial' theme reminds us of Job. In that story Satan induces
Yahveh to put Job to the test. In the first akedah story, Satan had
not yet become a figure apart from God; the two facets (good and
evil) were still conjoined in Yahveh. The suggestion therefore ema-
nates from God himself, that is, from his own dark side, the dark
side of the Self in psychological terms. This is the classic w^ay in
w^hich the process of developing consciousness is initiated: the dark,
alienated side of the Self, the Shadow, comes closer to the Ego and
provokes a crisis.
In the context of concern to us here, we are less interested in the
Biblical story than in the transformation it underwent as Jew^ish
religion evolved. In developing the theme, I base myself essentially
on G. Dreifuss's studies on the subject (Dreifuss 1971, 1975).
During one-and-a-half thousand years, far into the Middle Ages,
Jewish legends on the subject emerged and developed the theme of
i8o C. T. Frey-Wehrlin

the akedah. One variant is of particular interest to us in this context:

here, Isaac was indeed sacrificed and subsequently resurrected. This
image became a model for the Jewish martyrs during the crusades,
that is, for all those who paid for the hallowing of God's name with
their lives. Surprisingly, there is a connection between this theme
and the subject at hand, that is, the killing of the son by the father
is understood as a coniunctio, i.e., an erotic union between the two.
A poem written by R. Kalonymos bar Judah in those days makes
this very clear:
Fathers slaughter their sons, and wallow in their blood. . . .
Rejoicing, they make haste to affirm the Unity of thy Name. . . .
Fathers and sons, together, grooms with their brides
Hurry to the slaughter, as to the bridal chamber.

Aside from the historical context in which the poem was composed,
we cannot escape a psychological interpretation: it is the son who is
sacrificed, that is, the development of the living, the open future,
and his sacrifice is the price for the preservation of the existing values,
i.e., of God, and thus the upholding of the status quo.
The dynamics described here are obviously of great importance for
the conflict of generations in general. This conflict is based on an
opposition, and the outer contrast between father and son corresponds
to the inner one between the Conscious and the Unconscious. The
analogy finds expression in the well-known fact, also referred to by
Jung, that frequently children live the unlived aspects of their parents'
lives. Yet, these unJived aspects also belong to the parents' totality;
owing, however, to their incompatibility with the persona, they are
repressed by the parents and therefore fought in the children. The
resolution of the conflict and the redemption of the parentsthe
'father'seems to require acceptance of the 'son' by uniting with him
for the purpose of creating a new totality.
This would confirm the findings that resulted from our discussion
of the antecedents of the Oedipus myth. There, the issue was accept-
ance of the homosexual impulse by allowing Chrysippus to live,
whereas in the case of the father's murderous impulse toward the
son, we are shown the repressed and therefore perverted desire for
erotic merger {coniunctio). For in this manner a new totality would be
achieved and the life cycle would be able to resume at a new level.
Looking at the matter from this vantage point, I sense that a new
question arises, which I cannot go into now but which I do want to
formulate at least: could it be that, in addition to the coniunctio of
opposites, so dear to the hearts of the alchemists and Jung, there
might be an equally creative coniunctio of likes?
Traditionally, the son sacrificed by the father as described in the
Oedipus in Gethsemane i8i

akedah is considered to be a prefiguration of Christ sacrificed by God

the Father. In the following and last amplification of our theme I
therefore want to turn to this event, which was of such decisive
significance for our civilization.
The events surrounding the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus throw
yet another light on the complex we are dealing with. In the New
Testament the relationship between God the Father and the Son of
God is described as extremely close. 'I and the Father are one', says
Jesus. He is identical with the father. At least partial identity no doubt
also existed, however, between the fathers and the sons in our series.
Their joint interest in exploring the Unconscious is not merely based
on objective data but also on self-experimentation in the confrontation
with their Unconscious. Moreoverwith the exception of the Breuer
-Freud relationshipthe confrontation always took place in the con-
text of analysis, with the 'father' as analyst, in other words, in the
context of a relationship of transference and countertransference that
bears the hallmark of joint unconsciousness and therefore of identity.
'I and the analyst are one!' By way of anecdote, I recall that, in the
early analytical circles of Zurich, Jung's direct disciples tended to
display a laugh like Jung's, or they would wear a similar ring, while
yet others used the same type of forms for their bills and smoked
the same type of pipe. . . . However, let us turn back to the arche-
typal events in the Christian myth. Identification of father and son
takes place exclusively in the area of goodness and light. All the
darkness, everything that is shadowy, is split off and carried by the
figure of Satan, i.e. absolute evil. Here the situation is therefore much
more radical than in the two previous examples, the stories of Laius
and the akedah. There the repressed shadow was confmed to homo-
eroticism, here it appears as evil per se.
In line with the extreme intensification of the problem, the solution
also needed to be radical. In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus finds
himself in a hopeless situation. Capture and death are imminent. In
his distress he calls upon the Father, asking him to take this cup from
him if it be his will. What is remarkable here is that the Father did
not answer with a 'no'. There was in fact no answer to the thrice-
repeated plea. Even worse, the answer was that God allowed the
events to take their course. Jesus, the Son of God, is offered up for
annihilation. However, as Karl Barth has put it, this brings about
'the unification of God's will, which, so far, Jesus had obeyed under
all circumstances, whatever its nature and which he intended to con-
tinue to obey . . . with the power of evil, which he had resisted.'
'God's will was done in that Satan's will was done' (Barth 1953, p.
295). To complete the work of redemption, which culminates in the
resurrection of Christ crucified, the recognition of evil and its
182 C. r . Frey-Wehrlin

inclusion in these events, i.e. its real-ization (= making it real) is an

absolute prerequisite.
I use the Christian myth because the extremism it displays is the
very background against which the paltry drama, describing the
genealogical events in depth psychology, takes place. All the same,
even our cases involved blood and thunder. Yet, the shadow which
needs to be integrated to solve the problem is not evil per se, Satan
in person as it were, but a partial aspect limited in time, namely,
homoeroticism, which is still a taboo in our society for the time
being.
Quite obviously, the conflict of generations, even the analytical
one, can also be viewed as a power problem. This is how Alfred
Adler saw it and Elias Canetti devoted a fascinating study to the
problem (Canetti 1984). However, I prefer to mention this aspect
only in passing because I get the clear impression that the 'erotic'
plummet takes deeper soundings, if I may put it that way. But I
admit that this may be a matter of taste, or temperament.
Let us now take a brief look at the line of thought we have been
following. On the basis of my personal experience, my attention was
drawn to the fact that, as the generations followed each other, the
relationships between (analytical) 'fathers' and 'sons' in the field of
depth psychology have often been characterized by great closeness,
going far beyond joint professional interests and reaching into the
personal, even the intimate sphere. After a time, these friendships
tend to get into a crisis, which turns out to be insurmountable and
leads to a break in the personal relationship. The assumption that the
reason for this course of events was lacking awareness of the transfer-
ence/countertransference problems turned out to be too general, for
comparison with the Jung-Spielrein and the Jung-Wolff cases showed
that, ultimately, these relationships took a far less destructive course.
This fact led to the hypothesis that the real reason may reside in the
homosexual nature of these relationships. A look at Jung's Collected
Works and the studies of his immediate disciples showed that the
early Jungians failed to devote much attention to the problem of
homosexuality. Laius' destiny, as a background for the Oedipus
myth, as well as the stories surrounding the akedah, showed that
resistance to the homosexual theme is archetypal in origin. Finally,
i.e. in its most general form, the fatherson problem appears to be
linked to ultimate evil, as suggested by the events in the garden of
Gethsemane.

What are the conclusions we may draw from these reflections?

When I became attentive to the rather fateful destructiveness in the
genealogical succession of depth psychologists, I was immediately
Oedipus in Gethsemane 183

struck by the question of how I might change this apparently ineluc-

table course of events and preserve my own 'sons', or patients and
students, from suffering the same kind of damage. In other words,
does the plot always have to carry the imprint of primitive-archetypal
brutality or can consciousness humanize it? It seems obvious that the
archetypal images behind these events point to fear, a fear that the
paternal world view and system of values, in which I ani well anch-
ored and which offers me security, might be questioned by a 'son'.
On the one hand, this son appears like a threat from outside, for
which we have the example of the relationship between Jung and
Freud. Freud was not capable of tolerating the development which
took place in Jung and which put into question the universal applica-
bility of the theory of sexuality. He had to cling to his paternal view
ofthe world. On the other hand, the threat is also constellated from
within, namely in the form of the homosexual impulse, which the
Conscious rejects vehemently as being incompatible with the accepted
code of values. There is no doubt but that the threat from within,
the homosexual impulse, emanates from the Self, vvhich means that
it serves the further development of life. The Ego's refusal to entrust
itself to the spontaneous mainstream of life leadsviewed arche^^
typallyto the violent death of Chrysippus and the joint blood bath
of fathers and sons; in human affairs it leads to a break in the relation-
ship between members of different generations. Put into general and
unscientific language, the rejection of lovein its homoerotic form
in this caseleads to the establishment of a rule by power and an
obstruction of life.
As far as our daily analytical work is concerned the most immediate
requirement is that we make up for the lacuna in Jungian psychology
as regards homosexuality. As I pointed out earlier, hopeful beginnings
have been made in this direction in the last few years. Undoubtedly,
these recent efforts are related to the more general trend prevailing
in our time in the direction of depathologizing and demarginalizing
homosexuality and the homosexual. At the same time, the goal of
achieving a generalized non-emotional attitude towards this problem
may not be achieved for some time to come. As analysts we can
make our contribution to being conscious of our own make-up, i.e.
our own homosexuality.
Our attitude towards homosexuality is, of course, only one aspect
of our relationship with members of the next generation. There is a
need for general openness to the concerns of our 'sons'and, of
course, our 'daughters'. Analysis, as well as training, offers plenty of
opportunity to this end. In our analytical work we hear a great deal
about sons whofollowing the Oedipal modelare out to kill their
fathers. There is far less talk of fathers who are prepared to be killed.