The :Land of Dis

[Guest guest]

I was deeply moved by Alice's post this morning (Wednesday.)

In her discussion of sym-bolus and dia-bolus, Alice caused me to think back to a

fascinating seminar I recently attended. The presenter was Kalsched, a

Jungian analyst who was speaking to a group of analysts-in-training on the

subject of " Defenses of the Self. "

Kalsched used slides to take us on a journey through the imagery of Dante's

" Inferno, " especially the Canto dealing with the " Land of Dis. "

The clinical idea behind this was that, under conditions of severe trauma, the

Self comes up with its own protective devices, different from those used by

the ego. The psyche undergoes a process of dis-sociation. A part of the

Self goes to the Underworld. The deepest layer of the Underworld is imaged

as The Land of Dis.

" Dis, " as a prefix to verbs, can mean apart or away, as in dismiss or disperse.

It can mean deprive of or expel, as in disfrock or disbar. It can mean becoming

the opposite of, as in disable, or mean fail, cease, or refuse to, as in

dissatisfy, disappear, disallow. It can also mean do the opposite of, as in

disjoin or disintegrate.

Each one of these dis-words is a verb, an archetypal process---which Dante

imagined as an icy-cold place, different from the red-hot pit of Hell. The Land

of Dis is an image for what is essentially a direct experience of a

psychological

state. Kalsched also makes the sobering point that the dia-bolous, as a nega-

tive force within the Self, is capable of destroying the Self in the name of

defending it---a fact well known to clinicians who work with clients with severe

dissociative disorders.

I find it interesting that " dis " has become a common verb in our culture. It

would

seem to have to do with stripping someone of his pride, of attacking his self-

esteem and self-image, and of reducing his stature to the lowest possible point.

The person under attack responds by trying to restore his narcissistic

equilibrium

through dissing his enemy. The psychic state of Dis would seem to be covering

much of our planet at the moment.

Tricia Ells