“The Schizophrenia Complex”
It was another tidy Saturday morning, Zoom style
At the Jung Foundation in New York City
Where the instructor, a psychologist, will discuss her book
“The Schizophrenia Complex” that she said
Caused a huge stir among family and friends
Because this study of the unconscious
Included her son as a patient and voice from the shadows
Who will help us find another lens into this disease.
.
The class begins with little fanfare:
We are going under; we are going down.
The teacher begins with her dream, seven years earlier
Where she is alone, underground, in a building
That seems to sit over a sink hole
Covering a dark pool that she dives into
And is aware of the dangers as she goes deeper
Into the water, into her unconscious
Where “feeling-toned complexes” reside,
Often unspoken, unseen, and unacknowledged.
.
The teacher now hands the mantle to the class,
Instructs us to close our eyes, be silent
And try to recall any flirtation with the “darkness,”
Any eruptions, any encounters with the shadow,
With the unconscious that roams in our psyche.
I go, as if by habit, to my dreams that I have recorded
For more than twenty years and recall
From a journal a recent nagging dream
In which I am naked, meandering with a faceless
Crowd, a mass movement looking for an exit,
Wandering along an icy border, reading
Puzzling hieroglyphics that tattoo the night sky
That translate into nothing palpable but the endless
Invitation, the itch to go under, perhaps attached
To a dark cloud, now into a cave with piles
Of sticks and stone, and I think of bones
Breaking and chatter that invades my head
As I rest on the edge of something, teetering
In my nakedness, waiting for a hint of recognition
And a blessed coning up for air.
.
The instructor comes to my rescue; we should
Be silent and listen. Recognize, accept,
And welcome madness. After all
Life is full of madness, the unknown law.
She refers to her written piece, “Dialoguing with my Daemon,”
About us living in an unruly world, unfettered
By ego and consciousness with a capacity for pathology,
Unregulated behavior and inner chaos.
This world is subjective and archetypal.
.
The descent into madness has a profound
Ripple effect that lowers consciousness and weakens ego
Now submerged in the unconscious.
The feeling-toned complex becomes split off
From a bout of excessive emotion and becomes deeper,
Schizophrenic and more dangerous,
The neurotic complex that we all carry
Now becomes a psychotic complex,
A psychosis, a foreign body, relentless
In reach and design, denying transformation.
.
The teacher mentions Jung’s deep dive
Into the unconscious, to humanize
And to honor what we don’t know,
Standing in that liminal state, holding
The tension of opposites and navigating
The realm of the ego and the unconscious,
Instinct and Eros connected,
Rather than residing in an either/or world.
.
We are now in the Zurich hospital with Jung
Listening to his work with psychiatric patients,
The word-association test, proving hallucinations
And delusions had meaning on a deep
Level and in the collective unconscious
Triggering an array of feeling-toned complexes.
For Jung, man’s psychic fantasy is a myth.
Mythic tales parallel a patient’s unconscious.
So, the man humanized psychosis.
.
In his “Red Book” Jung writes: “Be Silent and Listen,
Have you recognized your madness?
All your foundations are completely mired
In madness. Let the light of your madness
Shine. Madness is not to be despised.
Give it light. Madness is a special food
For and of the spirit. For life itself
At bottom is utterly illogical.”
.
The instructor brings us back to earth
From Jung’s poetic caution about what
Ruminates within our spirit and soul.
The exercise, courtesy of a British nurse,
Is simple: say “schizophrenia” out loud
A few times to feel the shape, weight
And balance of the word and how it might shift
Our consciousness, perhaps take us down.
.
I carry this task with me well after class,
And for days the questions linger
About the times I have entered that zone
As in the dream cited earlier
Or something closer to home
Such as a recent pre-Christmas feast with a brother,
And when his comedic rant found my rage
From a distant, unresolved past and sundered ties.
The unconscious ruled the day and the night.
I am now digesting Jung’s “special food,”
That dark feast from the uninvited shadow,
Volcanic and unrelenting,
Madness waiting to be called to the fore,
Family tree on fire, signaling
Work on the psyche is never done.
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(Note: This is a poetic summary of a workshop at the C.G. Jung Foundation in New York City on February 24, 2024, conducted by psychologist Eve Maram; “The Schizophrenia Complex: Finding Your Way to a New Attitude.” I’ve attended Jung workshops for more than twenty years and find them invaluable for my essay writing, fiction and poetry. 2024 course details are available at cgjungny.org.)
