rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_d1539012-c867-5fda-8789-b1f45b302270">Figure 1 and Figure 3 which indicate Barbara's identification with the male.
The accentuation of the body outline in Figure 2 should be interpreted as revealing a deficiency or weakness in the perception of her body's periphery. It is an attempt to impose a form upon what is felt to be formless. The loss of muscular tone in Barbara's body gave it an amorphous quality, for which she compensated by drawing heavy body lines.
Who was Barbara? Was she the corpse of Figure 2, portrayed as a wax figure, or was she the diabolic, demure maiden shown in Figure 1?
Looking at Barbara one would have considerable difficulty detecting a perverse side to her nature. Her expression was demure, shy, and apprehensive. But she recognized the demonic aspect of her personality and admitted it.
FIG. 1
FIG. 2
I felt most alive when I felt most perverse. At college, sleeping with boys had a perverse quality. I slept with a boyfriend of one of my girl friends, and I was proud of it. I bragged about it because I had done something perverse. Another time, I slept with a man, fat and ugly, who paid me for it. I was very proud. I felt I had the ability to do something different.
In terms of her body, toneless and amorphous, Barbara saw herself as an object (unalive, a mannequin) to be sacrificed to the demonic sexual demands of the male. In terms of her ego, expressed by the head and hands, Barbara identified with the demon who demanded this sacrifice and she derived some strange satisfaction from her debasement.
Barbara's mother had also regarded herself as a victim or martyr and her body was similarly shapeless and formless. Barbara obviously identified with her mother on the body level, while on the ego level she was repelled by her mother's body and humiliated by her mother's role as a sexual object. To give her own life a more positive meaning, she dissociated from her femininity and identified with her father.
The incorporation of the male ego by a female produces a witch. The witch upholds the view of the male ego that the female body is an object to be used sexually. Thus, the witch turns against her own body and gloats over its sacrifice because it represents the debased aspect of her personality. At the same time, she compensates for this debasement by elevating her ego image to that of the superior nonconformist who has rejected the old morality.
The demonic drive of the witch also aims to destroy the male ego. By turning against her own femininity, the witch negates the role of love in sex and mocks the male who seeks her. Barbara's sexual submission reflects her contempt for the man. She is, in effect, saying, “I am nothing and you are a fool to want me.”
The man who takes possession of a debased object wins a Pyrrhic victory. He is degraded in the eyes of the woman. Thus, Barbara took revenge upon her father, who had participated in the humiliation of the female.
FIG. 3
In making her unconscious childhood adjustments to her life situation, she could not have foreseen that the witch's revenge against the male would rob her of all feeling, or that by dissociating from her femininity she would be stuck with a “deadened” body and unable to respond to love. Barbara was left without a self because her body belonged to her mother and her ego to her father. As an adult, she came to realize that she was cheated, but she could not renounce the witch as long as she unconsciously accepted the value of her ego image and rejected her body.
Barbara was both the witch and the victim, both the demonic ego who demanded the sacrifice of the female body and the submissive body terrified of the sacrifice. Such a split produces two conflicting identities. The split in Barbara's personality could be expressed in terms of life and death. To save her ego she had no choice but to give up her body. Submitting to her parents’ values meant turning against her body, but by this maneuver she assured her survival as well as her sanity. As a child she had to incorporate her father's image of the female (to which her mother assented) and to fantasize that this life-negative attitude had some sublime meaning.
The sacrifice of the body in the schizoid personality is a symbolic act—not that many of these unfortunate beings do not make the literal sacrifice of suicide. Barbara's sacrifice consisted of the rejection of her body, the withdrawal of feeling from it, the denial of its significance as an expression of her being. But her conflict remained alive because her body remained alive and acceded to the symbolic sacrifice only under protest. In this struggle the body has an ally in the rational part of the mind, which, while helpless to overcome the demonic force, is nevertheless strong enough to bring the patient to therapy.
The next case illustrates the split of identity in an individual whose personality was more intact than Barbara's. Henry was a highly successful man in his fifties who consulted me because of a lack of pleasure and satisfaction in his life. He had worked hard and had “made it,” but something was missing. “Money is no object,” he said in discussing the fee, but money couldn't help him. His success had brought on feelings of depression, the beginning of a stomach ulcer, and a strong desire to “get away from it all.” He thought only of the time when he would retire from business, but he had a presentiment that this would be no solution. He was constantly faced with problems which, he said, he could handle if they came one at a time, but all together they were too much.
Describing his youth, Henry said that he had been regarded as the black sheep of the family who would not amount to much. Then one day he resolved to prove that he could succeed. He did, but success brought new challenges and further responsibilities. It wasn't easy to quit. What does one do after one quits? Much as Henry complained about his problems, he was excited by the opportunities they presented. Having committed himself to success, Henry had to go on being successful. This is quite a burden to carry, since success permits no letdown or release except through failure.
Henry's decision to undergo analytic therapy lightened his burden. Some of the burden was shifted to the therapist, and Henry felt better and freer. When I pointed out to him how much he had neglected his body, he was impressed. He made up his mind to devote more attention to his body, and this helped him temporarily. Henry had both the will and the strength to make a significant effort to change his pattern of behavior, but he could not sustain this effort. Actually he regarded therapy as another challenge, to which he responded with his characteristic determination. Thus, therapy itself became another burden.
One day as Henry sat in my office discussing his problems, he let himself go more than usual. His head dropped to one side, his face sagged, he looked very tired, and his eyes had a defeated expression. He looked as if he had been beaten, but didn't know it.
Henry had an ego image of himself as invincible, which denied the inner reality of his feelings. It was not that Henry believed that he would always win. He was simply determined that he would never lose or be beaten down. Yet, physically he was a defeated man who refused to accept defeat. He was defeated in his attempt to find a personal meaning in financial success. He was in despair over his inability to find any pleasure in life.
