THE GOLDEN KEY: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MOTHER COMPLEX, THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE AND THE SELF - Nan Parry

This seminar explores the relationship between the mother complex, the mother archetype and the Self in individual development. We consider both archetypal and developmental perspectives to explore the effect of our experience of ‘Mother’, revisiting Neumann’s seminal insight that the personal mother functions as ‘locus of incarnation’ of the Self. When yearning for connection is thwarted, a negative archetypal constellation ensues; the symbolic realm is foreclosed. Exploring clinical material, we witness how the re-emergence of arrested longing may coincide with reawakened symbolic capacity. The regressive pull through the wounds of the personal mother complex proves purposive: facilitating a vital,restorative process of connection to the creative potentialities of the Self.