The Hiss of Hope: A Voyage with Parkinson’s Towards an Intimate Autonomy

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The diagnosis of a chronic illness can separate a person’s timeline into two spaces: the before and the after of the onset of the disease.

For author Meredith Oenning-Hodgson it is Parkinson’s Disease. The disease has been with her for 20 years. For the first few years the relationship between her and Parkinson’s remains moderate. But the symptoms gradually become worse. And the battle begins. Her psychoanalytic practice has to close. Patients are referred to colleagues. Her days and nights consist of dualistic power battles, of feelings of resignation, or of enduring the hours when her body freezes and she becomes a statue, at the mercy of Parkinson’s Disease.

Even though The Hiss of Hope is about living with a chronic disease, the book does not dwell on a life of suffering and desperation, but rather, it also depicts the adventure leading to places, to encounters and to depths of experience that would not have been possible without first having been ambushed by Parkinson’s.

Description

The diagnosis of a chronic illness can separate a person’s timeline into two spaces: the before and the after of the onset of the disease.

For this author it is Parkinson’s Disease. The disease has been with her for 20 years. For the first few years the relationship between her and Parkinson’s remains moderate. But the symptoms gradually become worse. And the battle begins. Her psychoanalytic practice has to close. Patients are referred to colleagues. Her days and nights consist of dualistic power battles, of feelings of resignation, or of enduring the hours when her body freezes and she becomes a statue, at the mercy of Parkinson’s Disease.

This book is a descriptive narrative of the re-shaping of this state through learning an unfamiliar pattern of relating, through acquiring a consciousness—and an experience— of an intimate autonomy.

From the initial port of a relating pattern with Parkinson’s Disease consisting of the usual fight, flight, freeze or the book’s new “fall” structural methodology, the author takes off on a voyage to a place harboring cryptic intimations about new ways of being “with” an illness, about a less ego-accentuated interacting. This remarkable transmutation happens gradually. A re-molding takes place during the course of this seven year journey. The nucleus of this book is a descriptive narrative of this journey: of a voyage to the paradoxical space of an intimate autonomy.

Even though The Hiss of Hope is about living with a chronic disease, the book does not dwell on a life of suffering and desperation, but rather, it also depicts the adventure leading to places, to encounters and to depths of experience that would not have been possible without first having been ambushed by Parkinson’s.

Today’s Zeitgeist seems to be pregnant with dark and fearful hints of impending disasters . This book suggest an intimate autonomy as a culturally integrated relating pattern of dealing with life in the first half of the 21st century. And with death.

With a grateful nod to Parkinson’s Disease and its initial rupture of her life, the author concludes her book with a generous smile. The sparkle of the ‘before’ space links to the calm radiance of the “after.” And an untried Third reveals itself as a dynamic Fourth, which is a new One—a beginning asserts itself at the end. Parkinson’s reacts with a wise and iconic grin.

“It is a beautifully made book…a mysterious photograph of a statue on the cover…The Hiss of Hope describes the struggle with a chronic illness, resolving it in a way of being the author calls an ‘intimate autonomy.’ It is not a self-help book as such …it would fall into the categories biography; philosophy and clinical psychology…also literature …Yes, the book is about Parkinson’s; ..But most of all it is about relationships….Captain Ahab and Moby Dick… J.W. Goethe…Rilke’s terrifying angels, and Paul Celan, among many others… (I am) rather in awe of the writer’s capacity to weave all the strands together with formidable clarity and structure…the style is demanding…if at any point you feel you can no longer concentrate, you may relax by baking (and eating) the ‘upside-down gingerbread’—the recipe is also included the book…And as the book comes to the end, it is also a beginning…for us, the readers, who continue to be in search for ourselves, to find out what an ‘intimate autonomy might mean for our own lives.” -Clära Kunze

Table of Contents

Foreword, Jacqueline West 11

Introduction 25

Part One 27

The parts 28

Structures and spaces 29

The hiss of hope 30

Intimacy and autonomy 31

Parkinson’s and me 34

The hidden depth of structure 36

The alchemical nature of structure 39

Patterns 40

Our voyage 41

Intimate autonomy’s anatomy 43

The quality of nothingness 45

Secrets of nothingness 47

Creativity 49

The play space 51

The house and me 53

Structures: Words, exoskeletons, scaffolds, and repetition compulsions 55

The word 56

Exoskeletons and the dragonfly 59

The house scaffold 60

Repetition compulsions 61

Intimate autonomy 62

Hope, no-hope, and their hiss 64

Part Two 67

Summaries 67

Now 67

Prologue 69

The molts (Latin: mutare, “to change”) 70

Molt 16: Intimate autonomy’s anatomy 73

Molt 15: “Formation, Transformation,/The Eternal Mind’s Eternal Animation” 74

Molt 14: Anna 75

Molt 13: Alchemical moments and clinical vignettes of the voyage into an intimate autonomy 75 Molt 12: The dynamic dialectic of play—Galatea 77

Molt 11: The transmutation of the ice mirror 78

Molt 10: The dis-union 78

Molt 9: The dragonfly 79

Molt 8: The pitbull and the kitten—a two-in-one movement 80

Molt 7: The egg 80

Molt 6: Optimal oppositional friction 81

Molt 5: The dragonfly nymph 82

Molt 4: The pregnancy 83

Molt 3: The birth 83

Molt 2: The split 84

Molt 1: Anaclitic therapy 84

Final Molt: The dance of colors 85

The emergence into the adult phase 86

Epilogue 87

Part Three 91 Transmogrification 91

Molt 16: Intimate autonomy’s anatomy 91

Fairy tale blueprints of an intimate autonomous relating pattern 97

The king of the birds 97

Florinda and Yoringal 99

Personal experiences of an intimate autonomy 101

Molt 15: “Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind’s Eternal Animation” 102

Molt 14: Anna 104

Molt 13: Alchemical moments and clinical vignettes of the voyage into an intimate autonomy 108

Alchemical moments 109

The paradox and beyond 111

Parkinson’s and I 113

Anna and l 115

Vignettes from Anna’s and my voyage 116

John and I 120

The dragonfly and I 121

Ahab and Moby Dick 121

The regressive space 122

A clinical vignette 124

A child of light is born 127

Molt 12: The dynamic dialectic of play—Galatea 130

Galatea 130

Upside-down play 132

Molt 11: The transmutation of the ice mirror 136

The movement 138

The real 139

Molt 10: The disunion 142

The fractured union 144

The white cat 145

The narcissist 148

Molt 9: The dragonfly 149

My dance with the dragonfly: Peering into the looking glass 150

The dragonfly and me 150

Dreams 155

Molt 8: The pitbull and the kitten: A two-in-one movement 161

The pitbull 162

Fractals 165

The word 167

The pitbull and the kitten 168

Molt 7: The egg 169

Chaos theory 171

Anna’s and my relating patterns 173

The birth of the pitbull 175

Molt 6: Optimal oppositional friction 178

Molt 5: The dragonfly nymph 189

Digesting the active imagination 190

Anna’s and my separation 192

Molt 4: The pregnancy 194

The placenta 195

The good-enough mother scaffolding 197

Introjection 199

Real 200

Pregnancy 200

Molt 3: The birth 201

Three transformational requisites for flying 202

Molt 2: The split 204

The regression 205

The vertical split 208

Isaac Newton, the scientific alchemist 212

Molt 1: Anaclitic therapy 216

Regression revisited 216

The third space revisited 219

The third space 220

A personal account of anaclitic therapy 221

Anecdotes from our anaclitic therapy 229

Final Molt: The dance of colors 231

Red and white 232

The whiteness of the whale 235

The dragon fly 236

The narrative 237

Emergence into the adult phase 240

The dance 240

My dance into an intimate autonomy: a refection of the dragonfly 243

A fugitive autonomy 248

The word 251

The hiss of hope (I) 252

Epilogue 253 Dragonfly eyes 253

My eyes 254

Repetition compulsion 257

Parkinson’s disease 259

The centrality of me 261

The hiss of hope (II) 263

APPENDICES Appendix A-1: T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” from The Four Quartets (1935) 265 Appendix A-2: Hafez, “Every Child Has Known God” 267

Appendix A-3: Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Two Voices” 267

Appendix A-4: W. H. Davies, “The Dragonfly” 268

Appendix A-5: Kahlil Gibran, “On Death” 269

Appendix A-6: Paul Celan, “Death Fugue”/ “Todesfuge” 270

Appendix A-7: “East Coker,” from The Four Quartets 273

Appendix A-8: T. S. Eliot, “A Game of Chess” and “Death by Water,” from The Wasteland 274 Appendix A-9: Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies “The Eighth Elegy”/ “Die Achte Elegie” 275 Appendix A-10: William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” 276

Appendix A-11: Rainer Marie Rilke, “The First Elegy”/ “Die Erste Elegie” 277

Appendix A-12: Alfred Lord Tennyson, “In Memorian,” Section 45 278

Appendix A-13: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo”/ “Archaischer Torso Apollos” 278

Figure: The vertical and horizontal splits 280

References 280

About the Author 288

 

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