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I wish to welcome Metman's paper on “The Trickster Archetype in Schizophrenia” as being, in my opinion, an outstanding contribution on this subject. What he has to tell us with regard to the autonomous complex and to the trickster attitude which goes with it is of great value, and it is told with a verve that must compel attention. I hope in this footnote to his exposition to add something to it by attempting to clarify two points that seem to me to need some comment, namely:
the difference between the nature of the “autonomous complex” which he so ably describes, and that of the “autonomous pysche” which, though mentioned from time to time, is never clearly defined, so that the reader might be left in some doubt as to whether there is in fact a difference and, if so, what it is;
the allied question of what may be thought of as the “two kinds of trickster” that must inevitably be included in any discussion of the trickster problem.
The first mention of the autonomous psyche occurs on page 7 in a qoutation from my own critical notice of The Trickster: A study in American-Indian Mythology in Vol. II, No. I, of this journal (1957) referring (p. III) to “the autonomous psyche as structural as well as a dynamic force proceeding by its own will and in its own good time.” This, Metman says, needs “further scrutiny”, and the fact that he quotes this phrase, or the last words of it “in its own good time” but with slight alterations, no less than seven times during the course of his article shows that he attaches some importance to it.
But he fails to point out that this phrase which he quotes from me was about something quite different from the shut-off and self-restricting autonomous