From a depth-psychological perspective, we might understand the mighty storm in Plenty Coups’ dream as a force of archetypal dimensions. A regressive – and neurotic – response might well be a capitulation to this destructive force. Consideration of the Winnicottian manic response to ‘the feeling of falling forever’ referred to earlier, takes me to a strong component of addiction in the individually self-destructive patterns of this our ‘Age of Exhaustion’ (Hall, 2009). Already in 1883, Paul Lafargue begins his above-mentioned pamphlet by speaking about ‘a strange addiction . . . that, in modern society results in misery for both the individual and the masses, . . . the frantic work-addiction that leads to . . . exhaustion’. For a while now, the term ‘workaholism’ has been in use for this addiction – again, a theme predominantly taken up today by journalists: ‘This pressure – I can’t live without it’ (Munday, 2009); ‘The rise of the activity junkie’ (Hutton, 2004); ‘Might as well face it: you’re addicted to stress’ (Leve, 2004). Yet, the issue is literally a deadly serious one. Jungian analyst David Schoen defines addiction:
The addictive substance, activity or behaviour must ultimately take over complete and total control of the individual, psychologically. . . . And the second part of this definition is crucial: the addiction takes over control in an inherently destructive and ultimately life-threatening way. It is not an addiction unless it is a death sentence . . . of the mind, the body, and of the spirit. It is death sentence to the addict’s career, community, marriage, family and friends. It is not an addiction unless it has the lethal capacity and potential, the power to kill the individual.
(2009, pp. 3–4) If we consider addictions are attempts to protect from unbearable pain, then the pain at the root of the addiction to overwork and burn-out might well be understood as that of never having felt good enough, never having experienced our mother’s delight in our being who we are. ‘No, I’ve never had that!’ a patient recently exclaimed with shocking spontaneity in response to my having mentioned this affirming delight. So, the burning question becomes, ‘Will I Ever Be Good Enough?’ as psychologist Karyl McBride asks in her book (2009). From this perspective, we can understand workaholism as being very similar to that ‘desperate gesture of survival’ (Grand in Benjamin, 2009, p. 55), or, as my colleague Catriona Howatson puts it, ‘clawing myself out of a black hole’ (2009). Jung understood addiction as ultimately a striving for the numinous by famously seeing the spiritual dimension in the alcoholic’s craving for spirit. This later led to the basis of Alcoholics Anonymous (Schoen, 2009, pp. 9–29).
Correspondingly, Stephen Wright, yet without referring directly to Jung, regards burn-out as ‘a spiritual crisis on the way home’ (2010), and speaks of a:
subjective turn . . . where we seek inner understanding and meaning, exploration of the self. . . . Burnout is a desperate cry of the very essence of who we are/the higher self/the soul to break free. . . . It is the struggle to be in the world in which we find and give love and compassion.
(pp. 4, 7) For me, individual and collective healing meet in the turning point of the ‘subjec- tive turn’, invoking the spiritual dimension that we may call grace. Psychotherapist Gerald May writes:
Understanding will not deliver us from addiction, but it will, I hope, help us appreciate grace. Grace is the most powerful force in the universe. It can transcend repression, addiction and every other internal or external power that seeks to oppress the freedom of the human heart. Grace is where our hope lies.
(1988, pp. 4–5) The heading of this section ‘healing grace’ refers to the work of Jungian analyst Birgit Heuer who extensively argues for both the return of the Divine and the healing function of grace in the clinical hour (Heuer, B., 2003, 2004, 2008; see Chapter 9). It is to her credit to have allowed the spiritual dimension to descend from its lofty theoretical heights and to ground it in actual clinical practice (Heuer, B., 2010).
I see grace as the essence of the radical hope Lear speaks of. It is the temenos where the concerns of ancient indigenous and Western healing arts alchemically melt together with contemporary psychoanalysis and therapy: this is the direction where healing lies – just as Jung wrote in 1945, ‘my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous . . . that . . . is the real therapy’ (1973, p. 377).
From this perspective, that longing can only be fulfiled when we can say, ‘God loves me as I am. I love myself as I am’ or, in the words of a poem I wrote about this very experience under the dome of the Frauenkirche Church of our Lady, Dresden, where, in a different incarnation, Pandora, as the archetypal goddess, gets reinstated as the ‘All-Giver’:
I hold this dome inside me now, so, when in need, I can sit underneath this waterfall of grace that never ever ends, remembering
. . .
that any wound can heal,
be healed,
and, really,
that the dome of heaven in our Lady’s blue, is always sheltering me as I
live right inside
Her sweet, angelic breast in the land of milk and honey – paradise regained!
(Heuer, G., 2010, p. 140)
Conclusion
Don’t just do something – sit there!
(T. Nath Hanh, in Schnabel, 2012, p. 129) Beginning with a sociological take on our current Western ‘overwork culture’, I considered the extent to which we, in our field of psychoanalysis/therapy are part of this problem and whether we might be capable of becoming part of its solution. I give these concerns both an historical as well as a holistic dimension by tracing them back to the unus mundus perspective of the alchemists past and present, using Paracelsus and Wilhelm Reich respectively as examples. I gathered these thoughts together in order to arrive, with the help of the Greek myth of Pandora, and the dream of a nineteenth-century Native American at the concept of ‘Radical Hope: ethics in the face of cultural devastation’ towards healing on individual, collective, planetary and cosmic levels: in clear distinction to mere optimism, we can have a profoundly spiritual trust in an unknowable future. Let us hope – dare I say, pray? – that we, too, can listen to the chickadee – and also learn from the sloth.
According to Wilhelm Reich, ‘embracing lovers radiate a bluish light, orgone illumination, the same sort of light the astronauts saw in outer space’, and he called on us to ‘reactivate the natural vibrations within ourselves and society. Let the currents stream sweetly through . . . our muscles! Feel free to tremble and cry!’ (in Makavejev, 1972, pp. 32–33).
Acknowledgements
Different versions of this text have been published in Zeitschrift für Körper-
psychotherapie, 16: 53/54, Vienna, 2010, 41–56; Psychotherapy and Politics International, 8:1, 2011, 29–42; and Montreal 2010. Facing Multiplicity: Psyche,
Nature, Culture. Proceedings of the XVIIIth Congress of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, P. Bennett, ed., Einsiedeln: Daimon,
149–158 (CD); and presented at the 2nd International Conference of the International Association for Jungian Studies, ‘Psyche, Power and Society’, in Cardiff, 11 July 2009; The Cambridge Jungian Circle, Cambridge, 19 February 2010; The Association of Jungian Analysts, London, 8 June 2010; the XVIIIth Congress of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, ‘Facing Multiplicity: Psyche, Nature, Culture’, Montreal, 22–27 August 2010; and the C.G. Jung Public Lectures, Bristol, 12 February 2011.