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Much research has gone into studying the damage to and reconstruction of the parental images. The subject has engaged my attention over the last thirty years, and so I looked forward to reading Harding's book with special interest.
Her volume has a short introduction, in which it is stated that some knowledge of analytical psychology is required, but I believe that a glossary of terms would have made it easily understandable by most interested persons. There follows a chapter on ‘The parental image as source of life’, and then an account of the Babylonian creation myth which fills two chapters and is most enjoyable. The narration is good and the extracts well chosen; the myth lends itself to understanding with minimal comment, and Harding's intellectual grasp of her subject comes over well.
After showing that there is a normal damage to the archetypal image inherent in the transformation processes underlying the growth of consciousness, we are introduced, in chapters five and six, to the author's theory of its pathological variant. Her thesis here appears to follow the rather overworked concept of a ‘generation of “mixed up” kids, brought up without religion or recognized moral background, who consequently can hardly be expected to solve unaided the unresolved problems their parents bequeathed to them’ (p. ). She also mentions those unfortunate children who have ‘never known mother love’ at all (p. ). Both these groups are not able to fit into society and become alienated from others. Some of them voluntarily subject themselves to a therapeutic analysis and can be taken as a sample of the large group which they consequently represent.
Since the personal parents are deemed less important than the non-personal archetypal images, Harding maintains that the therapy of individuals must logically consist in evoking dreams and fantasies which will heal the damage. This argument is illustrated by a case study in which the thesis is sustained. It describes the treatment of a wo