I did not want to sleep. I lay on my blanket trying to sleep, but sleep did not come and I did not want it. I never wanted it. However, now my thoughts were racing. We were going home, and I had so much to think about because so much had happened, and now they were saying these strange things. And what had happened today? What had had happened with Leo Pete—I could remember it. There were like bright shapes in my mind for which I did not have words. I had never felt anything before like the power that had come out of me. In the times of the creation of symbols, the function of the artist is to create new order. In times of excessively rigid symbols, in contrast, the function of the artist is to create chaos. This latter is the challenge facing modern artists. The artists are concerned with form and the breaking up of misused form. This is so not only of the professional artists but of the artist in each of us. The German poet Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin wrote that when danger increases, the power to meet it also increases. Holderlin was a great poet and a schizophrenic at the same time; his pathology was related to his poetic talent. Thus epilepsy was called in ancient times the God-given illness, and it was thought by some persons in ancient Greece that psychosis produced poetry and profound inspiration. That is why great art often emerges in the after math of psychosis and neurosis. Some of the new artistic sensibility may reside in those very pathological aspects of life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

In light of this, I think it would be very important if we would value our breakdowns more, take more interest in our so-called neurotic symbols. Our breakdowns are often the place where we discover our vocations as artists or other professionals. And pathological tendencies often reveal and enrich the artist’s repertoire of symbols. They force people to wake up to life, to feel, not to go through life somnambulistically, not to let one’s neurotic patterns block off one’s appreciation of beauty. If it had not been for the inner chaos of some individuals, when they see a field of poppies in super bloom, they might just think, “Well, these fields of red poppies are pretty,” and go on to ignore them, instead of letting the moment inspire one and see that there is God’s grace being manifested in nature. The beauty of the poppies allows some feel a kinship in their loneliness—a kinship with the whole of nature, with the Universe of dawns and stars; it jars some out of their old routine. In this respect a breakdown, when one strikes a psychological road block, can be a very valuable experience. The times when one is wounded are often times when, out of these wounds, come new thoughts, new possibilities. Art and the beauty from which it comes makes us stop and take inventory of our lives. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Art and its symbols disrupt and enrich us who receive them, whether they are pretty or not. The richness of the artistic symbol is a richness of you and me, the receivers. The viewer thinks and feels a symbol, and by the symbol one gets one’s artistic response. For example, I am walking along a street and I see a cross in a shop window. I pay no attention to it at first, but four or five steps down the street I suddenly get a lot of ideas. Perhaps it symbolizes the crucifixion? Or perhaps it is a Ku Klux Klan cross, to be burned in that yard across the street? Or perhaps it is an advertisement for the Red Cross. Thus the symbol cues off in me, the viewer, the agony of the Ku Klux Klan’s cross or the ideal meaning of the Christian cross, as well as other possible meanings. The responses are obviously not in the symbol itself; they are in us, the viewers. However, you cannot feel them until the symbol hits you. You cannot think in that rich way except with the help of symbols. The central Crucifixion in Matthias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, c. 1512-1515 is one of the most tragic and horrifying depictions of Christ on the cross ever painted. Many people cannot bear to look at it. Rigor mortis has set in, Christ’s body is torn with wounds and scars, his flesh is greenish gray, his feet are mangled, and his hands are stiffly contorted in the agony of death. The painting portrays suffering, pure and simple. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

However, Grunewald painted this altarpiece for a hospital chapel, and it was assumed that patients would find solace in knowing that Christ has suffered at least as much as they. In this painting, the ugly and horrible are transformed into art, not least of all because, as Christians believe, resurrection and salvation await the Christs after his suffering. The line that runs down Christ’s right side is, in fact, the edge of a double door that opens to reveal the Annunciation and Resurrection behind. In the latter, Christ’s body has been transformed into a pure, unblemished white, his hair and beard are gold, and his wounds are rubies. A symbol is a bridging act. It puts together rational and emotional, cognitive and conative, past and present, individual and social, conscious and unconscious. All these are formed together as a montage. Marshall McLuhan, similarly, uses the figure of transparency: a symbol is a collage of transparent items. You can see through the top one to the various levels below and behind it, which is one way to look at Rothko’s and Olitski’s paintings. Nevertheless, there is something that needs to be said about the creative use of anger. Yet it is very elusive and perhaps escapes precise definition. Why can some people fight so creatively and effectively, while for others it seems to lead only to further frustration and bitterness? Many of the factors in symbolism are probably involved, but perhaps there is something more. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Very likely it is involved with the basic themes of our fear of love and our distrust of ourselves. One man in counseling said, “When somebody hurts you, you want to hurt them back.” When he said this, he was referring to his angry exchanges with his wife, which usually ended with no creative resolutions or awareness of their love for each other. When we see the anger of another toward us as primarily an attempt to hurt us rather than as an attempt to communicate feelings, and when we then reciprocate by attempting to hurt the other rather tan primarily expressing our feelings, it seems unlikely that we can achieve any creative experience. We are most likely to fly off onto a tangent of accusation and probing at weak points in the other person’s defenses where they can be hurt the most. Why does this happen? It is probably because we feel very threatened and incapable of dealing directly with another person. If we allow the other person full expression of feelings without reacting defensively and hurtfully, our self-hate leads us to assume that we will be overwhelmed. Often involved, too, is the assumption that expression of anger means the absence of love, which is probably an unconscious reaction to our fear of the experience of love, which the direct expression of anger can bring. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Looking at this from the beneficial aspect, it might be said that the quality that exists when anger is used creatively is a persistent basic trust and good humor. If a person could put into word, this is the kind of attitude that might go something like this: “Here we are, two people who are madder than hades at each other. And while we are both saying things, which to the outsider might sound terribly rejecting, yet I some how sense that he matters a great deal to me and that I matter a great deal to him.” It is that kind of attitude that can lead to the experience one man reported when, as the anger subsided, both he and his wife broke into pleased grins. “You know,” he said, “I really enjoyed that heated debate, even while it was going on. I felt really alive and like I was really being myself. And I enjoyed you standing up for yourself and explaining your position.” Such an attitude involved a feeling of self-worth in which one feels lovable and assumes the other person cares. The feeling, “He is angry with me, so he must not love me,” does not enter the picture. The individual is also sufficiently unafraid of love that one can enjoy the encounter of love even in its angry form. He also does not condemn himself for being angry. This discussion of the creative use of anger should not be closed without recognizing that there will always be situations in which we do not express all of the anger we feel. There will be situations, perhaps at work, for example, where we will choose to suppress anger. Often the results of expressing anger would not be as bad as we assume they would be. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Nonetheless it is possible to suppress anger without destroying ourselves. If it appears necessary, it is best that we do it with full awareness, knowing that we are angry, choosing to suppress it, and accepting the fact that we choose to do so. Discussing our feelings with some safe third person unconnected with the situation may help us to deal with the feelings. However, in relationship that really matter to us—where we long for the experience of love—the creative expression of anger will usually be the most satisfying and productive choice. The psychodramtic technique also uses the body, in that the person acts out a situation rather than just verbalizing it. The fantasy methods require an expansion of our explanation of the effectiveness of the methods, since they do not involve physical movement, but rather the full use of the imagination. Frequently, the loss of a significant person early in life has a traumatic effect upon the child. Later, this can have serious consequences for one’s adult relations with others. Whenever this situation is suspected and seems to be interfering seriously with the present functioning of the individual, this technique may prove very helpful. The central person, or protagonist, is asked to select someone in the group whom one feels is similar to the lost person and role-play with the individual the situation of meeting this lost individual. If the latter is dead, the protagonist imagines oneself going to Heaven for the meeting. The scene begins with a conversation about how the protagonist tell the lost one about one’s feeling about him or her. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

After a few interchanges, the protagonist is asked whether or not the role player is portraying the lost individual accurately. If one is not quite right, the roles are reversed and the protagonist plays the role of the missing one. This technique of role reversal is used several times as appropriate to help the protagonist feel how the other person feels. Other group members are invited to alter ego, that is, to stand behind one of the principals and say things they think the principal is feeling but not saying. Usually this combination of role reversal and alter ego brings out the major elements of the situation and allows the protagonist to explore and feel the full dimensions of the issue. The action is closed by having a realistic solution enacted, where the reality is now based on all the revealed issues. Usually the group leader or an experienced member is the director, although when the group becomes experienced all group members can participate in the direction of the enactment. The protagonist may select the actors one wants to play other parts, or they may volunteer, or sometimes it may be more useful to have one play to an empty chair. One changes chairs as one plays both parts. The technique is part of the psychodramatic method and usually is most effective when directed by someone familiar with that method. It tends to be a very emotionally involving method and in unskilled hands can leave the protagonist in some distress. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

To further illustrate, when she was nice, Anne’s father had divorced her mother, and left home. Anne knew that he had remarried since then and had more children. When she was about fourteen he had asked her to spend the Summer with him, but for some circumstantial reasons she did not go. Now, at forty, Anne has never seen her father since, although she admitted to always being vaguely in search of him. Currently she was having a great deal of difficulty with her husband, particularly in the area of feeling much and giving much to him. As the discussion proceeded, it became clear that she may have not been able to give herself fully to her husband because she had never resolved her feelings for her father. It seemed then that the best way to deal with the marital problem was to start with the father relationship. Anne was asked to select someone most like her father from the group. One man came to her mind immediately. Then she was asked to enact with him the hypothetical scene in which she finally meets her father. The other members of the group were invited to double whenever they wished, that is, whenever they thought that Anne or her father were not saying all they felt. Anne began by asking the father his name. Just as she began to say her name she began to cry. This continued for ten or fifteen minutes with Anne crying and her “father” holding her. The group, of course, was very surprised, moved, and tear. It was especially surprising since Anne had been quite closed and uninvolved in the group prior to this. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Finally, after the group had sat silently while Anne cried, she stopped. At this point it was very important to continue, although Anne was very tired. What had occurred was catharsis, but it just opened the door for further work on the problem and was not an end in itself. She continued the meeting scene, telling the father how she felt. She seemed to be omitting her hostile feelings, so one group member played her alter ego and Anne could begin expressing them more easily. It became apparent that Anne had not thought much about her father’s situation, so she was asked to reverse roles and play her father. This enabled her better to understand how he might feel. At one point her mother was introduced into the situation in the person of another group member, and Anne played, at various times, all three roles: self, father, and mother, to get a sense of what was happening in the trio. Finally, it seemed that Anne was really becoming exhausted, so she was asked to talk to her father and try to work out a realistic future with him now that the many aspects of the problem had been somewhat experienced and understood. This was accomplished nicely and they ended in a fond embrace, with a more rational understanding of the situation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Several other things could have been done with Anne; she could have confronted her father’s second wife, or his other children, or gone back and talked to her husband. However, it seemed that what she did was the most immediately important and drained all the energy she had. It was unlikely that she would have been receptive to any more exercises at the time. After this her mood changed radically and she became much happier and more effusive, a feeling that lasted during the remaining days of the workshop. Following is her own report of the episode and the events and feelings surrounding it. Anne’s account: When I really got plugged in emotionally at that group was when everyone walked off and left Stan alone in that room. [The group had left alone a group member who felt rejected, so that he could experience the feeling of being abandoned. Anne could not do it, and returned to be with him.] Inside me was the recurrent feeling that if he needs someone then someone will be there. Not that someone would or could do anything but that he would not be left completely alone. The second thing that had impact was when one of the girls was describing her feelings about her father’s closeness and concern, telling her what a precious little darling she was to him (her hang-up was too much father, mine was too little) and again the impact of, “I wish my father would have told me these things.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

The next thing was your direct confrontation, “You never talk about your husband. Why?” Because it is damn hard for me to admit failure (rejection) again—first my father, then my first husband, and now my second husband. When you said, “Pick out someone in the group to be your father,” Casper came to mind, and when we were there and he was holding on to me and I felt his arms and looked at them, they were like my father’s: muscled, brown with light-colored hair, kind of springy hair. (Casper is my father’s name, too.) When I sat on that cushion and looked at him, the intensity of feeling was enormous. I had no feeling of my body extremities. Just deep inside, somewhere behind my umbilicus, a gathering of something into a huge ball, soft and musky outside and hard as tungsten at the core. It kept moving up past my stomach, exploding in my chest and gushing out through my head, mouth, eyes, ears, nose. The pain began with the gushing, increased with the upward movement, and became unbearable with the explosion. My chest was tight and kept trying to push it back down. All during this time, I could only look at Casper’s face, mostly eyes, and when I said, “I am Anne Rice,” it really broke loose. I have never felt like that before nor have I ever cried like that before. Every noise, sob, cry which came out was coming from the same place that the original one came from only they were not so large or hard-cored, and they gradually diminished in size. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

The pain kept diminishing also in relationship to the size. I had no awareness of anyone else in the room. There was only Casper and myself. In between the noise and pain the awareness of his arms around me and the hanging on to him, the feeling of being enfolded, the feeling of comfort, the feeling of “I am home, at last,” the feeling of peace, serenity, and happiness began to gain dominance and profundity. It is incomprehensible to me, even now, that I could have had all that inside me and had no awareness of the fact that it was there. However, at that point I did not care about the whys and wherefores, but only that it was out, and it was just great. Then I felt really loosened up and felt available to everyone else. During the subsequent time of the group, I had that beautiful feeling inside of being at peace with myself and the rest of the World. I still cannot get onto hostility/anger regarding my father, but maybe it is just not time yet. I am sure there is quite a bit directed towards my mother. My mother and father divorced when I was nine years old with great bitterness on my mother’s part, which she expressed in depth and detail as to what a hard time it was. However, he came to see my brother and me on occasion until I was twelve. Whenever he did come, we would go on to the airport or Cleveland and fly in the plane or a blimp. It was a marvelous, happy feeling. Those things where a blast. I never saw him after that age, however. That made me feel inadequate. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

My father remarried and he wrote to me infrequently. Mother told me to answer his letters. When I was seventeen, he had gone into the Navel Reserve. He sent me money for tuition and books for a year at the University. That made me feel good. That spring both he and his wife wrote and asked me to come to California and spend their leave wit them and go to Yellowstone Park. I was happy about their invitation, but my mother had hysterics and said that all he wanted was a baby-sitter, and if I went I could never come home again. I felt strongly upset with her. At that point, I wrote that I could not come out to California, and I have never heard from him since. At the time, I felt like a scared little child, but also felt I did not deserve any better. Over a period of time, I had thought that was all there was to it and that it had no effect on me and my life. (How wrong can one be?) Having achieved some measure of success professionally, I began to have a recurrent fantasy and dream of meeting him. When I was about thirty, this developed in frequency and intensity. I had never worked through the fantasy beyond the initial confrontation. The recurrent themes were: I would find out where he was, I would go there, I would talk with him, and would tell him who I was. I always had hopes that he would be proud of me, he would be happy to see me, and all would be joy. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

I have never had a fantasy or dream since the experience in the group about y father and although I would like to see him if I could, I do not have the tension or anxiousness about it. The need does not seem to be there. You are absolutely right about the draining of energy. The tension of trying to push it up and trying to suppress it, or its trying to push up and out and struggle to give up control and the struggle to not fall apart for years does deplete one, down to the bottom. Also, it is such a joy to find the feeling of release that is part of the reward for the struggle, and I feel that is part of the whole need and process. Painful as it was, the peacefulness far outweighs the pain. (A second example illustrates the method applied to a death rather than a separation.) It had been noted in one group that Michelangelo was somewhat naive and seemed to lean heavily on the authority figures, idolize them, and make them omniscient. Michelangelo was a young man in his early twenties whose father had died when he was five. He had never really experienced grief. The account of his father’s death given him by his mother had been accepted, and he never reflected on the situation again. Because of his difficult relation with authorities, it seemed promising to explore the feelings surrounding his father’s death in order to understand and clarify the authority situation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

He was asked to imagine himself going to Heaven (some say that is what inspired The Last Judgment, “Guidizio Universale,” Sistine Chapel, 1531-1541) meeting his father, and talking to him about the circumstances surrounding his death and the subsequent events up to the present. He selected a group member most like his father to play that role, and began discussing his feelings around his father’s death. He frequently traded roles with his “father,” his “mother” was brought in and he reversed roles with her, and several group members served as his alter ego. He discussed missing his father, what effect it had on his later life, whether or not his father would be proud of him, hostility toward his father, his father’s attitude toward his mother and vice versa. Through all of these he was very involved and very depressed as the drama unfolded. Finally the accumulated emotion overwhelmed him and he buried his head in his “father’s” shoulder and began to cry. The cry was one of the most incredible imaginable. It lasted for twenty or thirty minutes without stopping. It varied from crying without tears, to sobbing, to crying without noise, to an infant’s tears, to a tantrum, to a quiet wail. After it was over, a long silence claimed the group. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

Slowly a discussion began of the impact of the event. One of the group members had a sudden insight that explained the crying. It sounded as though he had cried out all the crying he had never been able to get out—almost in sequence, backwards. Starting with an adult cry, he progressed backward through adolescent crying, childhood crying, and even wailed like an infant. All the crying that had been stored up and suppressed had finally been unleased. He felt exhausted and exhilarated. He was a very relaxed man thereafter. The dependency lessened, the voice became firmer, and the feeling prevailed that he had worked through much of the unresolved feelings for his father, and was ready to meet his peers more realistically. Michelangelo was immediately put back into the dramatic situation and a realistic solution of the relation between a son and a dead father was elaborated upon. What happened: In both these cases the original abandonment, happening at a very early age, had a devastating effect upon the child, an effect that was quickly covered over. The covering allowed the immediate sorrow to be bearable but took a profound toll in the basic personality. Anne’s relations with men were not as good as they could have been, and Michelangelo’s relations with male authorities and with women, wen it came to his being a man, were sadly slightly dysfunctional. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

The suppression Michelangelo required in order to endure the original abandonment acted as a cork on all the feelings surrounding the event. The dramatic reliving of these situations exploded the cork and the repressed feelings flooded out. In both cases, the relief was monumental. This release was essential to their psychological progress, but equally important was the subsequent conclusion of the relationship, and the following upon the catharsis to a realistic relation with the lost person. The events were so shaking that the full effect will not be known for several months, perhaps years. However, all indications are that these two people have entered a new phase of emotional development. Through the experience they were able to bear with unbearable sorrow and thereby gain renewed self-esteem and freedom from the burden of that sorrow. The second technique worthy of special mention is the use of fantasy, specifically the method derived from the guided daydream or initiated symbol projection. These methods, only recently developed, have a profound power to deal with very deep material in a very short time. When the deepest unconscious material is sought, it appears to be the method of choice. The method has great untapped potential and is so exciting and dramatic that several examples will be presented, including firsthand accounts from those experiencing the fantasy. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

On God’s part creation is not an act of self-expansion but of restraint and renunciation. God and all his creatures are less than God alone. God accepts this diminution. He emptied a part of his being from himself. He had already emptied himself in this act of divinity; that is why Saint John says that the Lamb had been slain from the beginning of the World. God permitted the existence of things distinct from himself and worth infinitely less than himself. By this creative act he denied himself, as Christ has told us to deny ourselves. God denied himself for our sakes in order to give us the possibility of denying ourselves for him. This response, this echo, which it is in our power to refuse, is the only possible justification for the folly of love of the creative act. The religions which have a conception of this renunciation, this voluntary effacement of God, his apparent absence and his secret presence here below, these religions are true religion, the translation into different languages of the great Revelation. The religions which represent divinity as commanding wherever it has the power to do so seem false. Even though they are monotheistic they are idolatrous. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

One who being reduced by affliction to the state of an inert and passive thing, returns, at least for a time, to the state of a human being, through the generosity of others; such as one, if he or she knows how to accept and feel the true essence of this generosity, receives at the very instant a soul begotten exclusively of charity. One is born from on high of water and of the Spirit. (The word in the Gospel, anothen, means from on high more often than again.) To treat our neighbor who is in affliction with love is something like baptizing him or her. One from whom the act of generosity proceeds can only behave as one does if one’s thought transports one into the other. At such a moment one also consists only of water and of the Spirit. Generosity and compassion are inseparable, and both have their model in God, that is to say, in creation and in the Passion. Christ taught us that the supernatural love of our neighbor is the exchange of compassion and gratitude which happens in a flash between two beings, one possessing and the other deprived of human personality. One of those two is only a little piece of flesh, vulnerable, inert, and bleeding beside a ditch; one is nameless; no one knows anything about him. Those who pass by this thing scarcely notice it, and a few minutes afterward do not even know that they saw it. Only one stops and turns his attention toward it. The actions that follow are just the automatic effect of this moment of attention. The attention is creative. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20