Electra and Antigone

I haven't been doing much myth work for a while, but I wanted to make a short post on how strongly I have seen the importance of both the electoral and antigonal (?) forms show up in therapy.

The electral form is straightforward in the object drives: an object egoist finds he or she has been cheated on and both the beloved and the third party are attacked. This attack at the anal level is the double murder that is so prominent in the myth and at the phallic level it's the attack on the reputation of the two. Either their "secret" is put out there to ruin their reputation or depending on the OE, he or she may even spread lies.

In the antigonal form which is the inverse of the electral form: a subject altruist finds that the beloved convinces others in the community, that one is the disgraced or fallen one and they believe it and look down or judge the subject altruist (to her intense anger). At the anal stage, one patient who was having an affair with a married man that was leaked by a friend found that he threatened her life and that his wife believed the husband, and thought that my patient was crazy and wanted to ruin her life, and my patient feared that she would murder her too. It's almost as if the shameful secret of the love object becomes reversed onto oneself.

With the subject altruist, who has suppressed or had her egoistic pole arrested in development, there is an inability to hold onto hate and anger. The person can consciously avow the anger from the antigonal complex and even have insight that their resentment is "like swallowing poison oneself and expecting the other person to die."

There are variations of ego vs. object drive, and active-egoism/active-altruism vs. passive-altruism/passive-egoism that I've mentioned in previous posts.

For example, I've mentioned before that the SA can be someone who assists who helps another person only to find their complete lack of gratitude or recognition of the help. They are again "the secret".