Meeting of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York

January 7, 1980. ON SOME EARLY COMPONENTS OF THE SPLIT PARENTAL IMAGO IN ANALYSIS, IN MYTH, AND IN RELIGION. Renato J. Almansi, M.D.

Dr. Almansi presented data from clinical analyses and from his study of myth and religious symbolism, in order to shed light on some of the earliest perceptual experiences which contribute to the formation of the object and to the split parental imago. Citing Mahler, Kernberg, and Blos, he stated that this imago is born in the early contacts between mother and child. The primitive perceptual experiences arising from these early contacts provide the raw material from which part objects and symbolization emerge. In every analysis an effort is made to reconstruct the parental imagoes in all their complexity, but it is particularly difficult to detect the preverbal contributions among all the later elaborations in the productions of the adult. Dr. Almansi sought to present criteria which might help in differentiating the earlier from the later perceptual contributions to the formation of the endopsychic image of the object. The data are centered on emotionally toned perceptual images of the parental face, hands, and voice.

First, Dr. Almansi presented material related to the myth of Medusa. Past contributions which emphasized Medusa as the frightening castrated female genital represent only one level of understanding. One constant feature in the numerous versions of the myth is the powerful eyes that turn humans into stone. The prototype of this experience in individual development is the frightened child's perception of the enraged parent's face, with attention and anxiety mainly focused on the eyes. In the analsyis of a highly ambivalent male patient, the Medusa image was visually associated with his father and other angry men. Prominent in the patient's memories of angry men was the "terrible look" in their eyes and their facial hair. The imago of this patient's father emerged in analysis as markedly split, paralleling the mi