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
