Your Mind Matters – Dr Anastasios Gaitanidis, Parsifal Unconscious Healing

Hello and welcome to Mythology. Today we are talking about myths that are alive and have energy, which means they may have a meaning for you. But before we begin with the myth of Parsifal, I would like to introduce you to my guest, Professor and eminent psychotherapist Anastasios Ghetanidis. And welcome, Anastasios. Thank you for joining me today. Very nice to see you, Maria, and very glad to be invited back to discuss with you the myth of Parsifal. Yeah, do you know what's so interesting? And I must say, I do love the chalice behind you, and I think that's very apt that you actually bothered to think about that. But do you know, I do think that people are picking up symbols and they don't quite know where they sit in the history of their own origin. And I know we are moving around quite a lot. People are moving from one country to the next. But certain symbols actually stay with us. And certain myths actually evolve with us. And that's why we're going into the myth of Parsifal today. Yes. So if you're okay with that, I will give a brief history of Parsifal. And I'll give a brief history of— I'll give the story and the story of Parsifal, the story of the Fisher King and the story of Parsifal. And I'm doing that because I still think it's very relevant today. So first of all, I have chosen the Cretan detroy, though, which is the original 12th century poem that was actually— this is how they told their stories, wasn't it? That one poem would be learned by somebody, and poetry was a lot easier to remember. And that's how they told, you know, sort of— so I would tell the story to you, you would go off and tell the story somewhere else and add something to it. But effectively, the stem of the story was always there. So this is based in the 12th century. Now, there were two further very important translations, if you like, or interpretations of the same story. One was by Thomas Mallory, which was Mord Arthur, Mord Arthur, which was based here in the UK, which I still think has very powerful meaning here in the UK. And it was actually based that Parsifal lived in Wales. And why not? And then you've got the, you know, very, again, a very powerful version which was put onto the stage, made into an opera. And this is based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parsifal, which was then taken by Wagner. And actually all that was used, interestingly enough, by the Nazis. And the Nazis used so many mythological symbols in, their occupation of people's unconscious. Let's say that. And I think that's exactly what happened. And they used these symbols in a way that made sense to people, and then they overpowered them with that meaning as if they were taking them somewhere good, which was in fact the opposite of where they were going. So let's start with the story. The Fisher King. The Fisher King was called Amfortas, and I'm using that name Amfortas because it's also a name that Jung used. The Amfortas Wound. And I know that both you and I have trained, and most people when they do deep therapy train with Jung and Freud, who are the sort of the source, as they call it, in our educational system. And so the Fisher King, at quite a young age, went out and he was wandering around his kingdom and there was a fire left in a camp. And on that fire, he was quite hungry, and on that fire, there was nobody around, was a salmon. And he took a piece of the salmon and thought, "I'm hungry, you know, this is my land. I'll have a little bit of this salmon," and put some into his mouth. But it was so hot, it burned him. He dropped the salmon, put his fingers in his mouth, and tasted a little bit of the salmon. The other version is, so that, you know, sort of burnt fingers and the salmon being a symbol of Christ. And then the other version is that there's a pagan knight who is out— 12th century, remember, knights, Knights of the Round Table and so on, and, you know, fair damsel. And, uh, the pagan knight was out on his horse, he was searching for the True Cross. So his was a very spiritual search, whilst the king was out hunting, but his hunt was more for passion. And they came across each other, and as in those days they did, they started fighting. And the pagan knight— both of them brought down their visors and they fought. And it was in fact the king who won the fight, but in the fight he actually was wounded in the thigh. So whichever story you have, the king is always wounded somewhere in the thigh. This means that the king and his regenerative process has been wounded. And they say if a king has been wounded, then his kingdom has been wounded. And not only his kingdom in sense of the king, and which we can see today with various leaders, but also is the king within us. If we are wounded, then our ability to make things happen is also wounded. And I like to see, before I go into the Parsifal story, I like to see this story that relates to women as well, because women now are activating their internal masculine, and this can actually also be very important to them. As at one time it was only seen as a masculine sort of, and I mean masculine, not male, but masculine story. So, um, the king then went back to his kingdom, and his kingdom didn't thrive. It was very sad, you know. So the women couldn't have babies, you know, sort of the crops weren't growing, you know, children weren't learning, you know. So everything was devastated. It was barren, and it became very sad. So now we have the story of Parsifal. So who is Parsifal? Pasiphaës is a young man, young, innocent, fool type of man. Fool doesn't mean silly, it just means without too many problems. He just loves life. He is sort of exuberant, loving life, excited. His mother has looked after him in a forest because her husband and her two sons who became knights were murdered. They were killed. She didn't want the same to happen to Parsifal, so she protected him in the forest. Consequently, he could live a very easy life until one day— this is where life takes over, you cannot control your life— he was out playing or walking in the forest and he saw five knights, and they were there with their glistening shining armors, their swords, their jewels. They looked magnificent. And he thought, that's what I want to be. He had no idea that his father had been a knight. He had no idea his brothers had been knights because his mother protected him. He came back home and said, Mom, I'm going to be a knight. And she said, oh my goodness. She didn't at that point tell him that he'd lost his brothers and his father at that moment. But he then— she gave him a garment to wear and said, "Off you go." She had to say that because he'd have gone anyway. This is exuberance. This is life. You've got to live your life. You cannot stay at home. And the mother's name was Heartsorrow, which means a great deal, doesn't it? It's such a powerful name. But again, this is a woman who gave her life to her family, as they did in those days. A woman's role was within the family, keeping people alive because so many of them were killed. But it's still relevant today. So off he went on his journey, and he— his journey was to become a knight. That's what he wanted to be. He had to go through various trials, as he did, and, um, he was enticed by various women. But on his journey, he was told two things: do not get seduced by a woman, and do not seduce a woman. So don't fall for the sensual side of your nature. And secondly, he was later on told, ask the question, ask the question. And that stayed with him. Now he was doing, going on the journey and eventually did become a knight. He fought the Red Knight, he fought a number of other knights, he saved a number of women, George and the Dragon, you know, he made a number of, you know, you know, sort of young maidens safe again. And but towards that middle part of his life, again, he was wondering, well, what's this? You know, who am I? What— I've done enough of that. I've saved enough women's lives. Where is my story? Where is my journey? And he eventually comes across the Grail Castle, and he stumbles into the Grail Castle. And he is— although he is a knight, he's still a bit of a fool. Of a knight. He hasn't had the fatherly impact that happens with a lot of young men, nor did he have a godfather to take the place of a father. And then he meets the Fisher King. The Fisher King is lying down and he has maidens around him. Every night there is a sort of ritual of one maid coming through carrying the sword that pierced Christ's side, one carrying the platter that carried the food at the Last Supper and one carrying the Grail. Everybody could drink from the Grail except the king, and it didn't matter if they drank from the Grail. If the king doesn't drink from the Grail, nothing can thrive, nothing can survive, nothing can grow. He stumbles across the king, and the king says basically, what do you want? He sees the king's wounded in the thigh, his regenerative process. Also, it's his creative process. And he says to the king, but if you want the Grail, whom does the Grail serve? And I think that is the biggest question of life, which also tells us, who does the Grail serve? But also, what are we doing here? What is the purpose? And it was at that point that the king could look at his reason to be there. What am I doing here? How do I take my sensual pleasures, my meaning for life, and make it into something bigger? So that story was told over and over again. And when I use that story, I really use the concept of the unforced whims in my PhD because I was talking about comedy. And I said the reason why men are use— why stand-up comedy has become so big in our world is because men are exploring their emotions in, um, a setting where it's comfortable for them. It's almost protected and safe. And if something that they explore and reveal is vulnerable, they can then say, well, it's only a joke, right? Okay. Yeah. Although their vulnerability and their exploration of their feelings is done within the story. Of whatever story they're telling for the purposes of a joke, right? So my theory was that young men are now trying to heal the symbolic wound of their fathers. Now, since I wrote that, which wasn't that long ago, we are now— actually, a lot of men are suffering from under the sword of life. There is this almost Bigfoot that's coming down wielding against men and saying, you're not allowed to be a real man, you're not allowed to go in and save women, you're not allowed to go in and be the king of your castle, is something terrible. What do you hear when you're in therapy with young men or men generally? Do you feel that affects them nowadays? I think it's, it's been It's been something that is a fundamental change in the way masculinity is constructed these days. But I see it both as something that is— it has a double sort of double consequence, double effect. On the one hand, men find that, you know, they don't want to carry the wound of their fathers. They don't want to carry all of this responsibility of being the ones who save sort of damsels in distress, or they be the, the prince warriors or the knights in shining armor, you know. They don't want this, this burden because on some level, you know, uh, uh, you know, they feel, okay, we, we, you know, why, why it will be only on us to save and rescue and be the ones who, who does all this work? But on the other hand, the plague by this sort of responsibility at the same time. I think there is a kind of double effect on them that they don't want it and want it at the same time. There is a remnant of that, what is to be, you know, a man and, you know, what is to carry the mantle of masculinity in the late 20th and 21st century. Which has changed so radically from what it used to be, you know, before. And that is both a good thing, but also it leaves a gap in terms of meaning. How do I construct my masculinity with what, you know, and with what, with the resources I have available now, which are not the resources I had in the past? So it's complicated, to say the least. And do they, um, suffer from that? Because, I mean, we are in an unusual time where, you know, social media actually impacts on everything we say, you know, our words, our actions. And anybody who stands out, and particularly our education system— and you're in education, and, you know, if you look at the, the role of a therapist is to allow people to explore their feelings is allowed basically for them to say what they feel, and that has to be explored. And to monitor that, to stop them from saying things, is against the whole premise of therapy, isn't it? Yes, yes. I think it's important that they do come to therapy and they feel they're enabled to say what they feel. But I think the problem there is not simply about feeling, it's about power as well. It's, you know, I think there is something about vulnerability that they still perceive as weakness, and that is something that they find really difficult to deal with. And I think there is something about the power that vulnerability can yield that is not something that both them and society really appreciates, right? So on some level, it's very important that we are promoting a therapy ability to someone to be vulnerable and emotional as a man. But at the same time, they go out there and the messages they receive is like, you know, just be careful with whom you are vulnerable to, because, you know, then this vulnerability will be exploited and then you will be wounded like the Freezer King, right? Absolutely. And then you will pass that on to your son, potentially. And then you— what do you do? I mean, this is, this is, this is You know, do you, do you expose your vulnerability, they get wounded, and then this wound, it has no ability to be healed? Or do you, do you carry that vulnerability very carefully and you only reveal it to people that you are capable to and you feel safe with? But that, even that can be quite tricky sometimes. And if a man is in a relationship, because I have this when I deal with couples, and the woman is asking for the man to be more expressive more vulnerable, she also has to change. Yes. Accommodate that. It can't just be one way. Yeah. Because it then means that the role that she has had and that role that he has had in their life together has altered. And so she has to accommodate that slightly differently. And then, uh, if she hasn't— so I do wonder whether there is You know, when you see the yin and the yang is quite a good one, concept, symbol, because then surely she has to then take on more of the masculine, allow that to be revealed. Yes. So that you've got a complement in the relationship. I think you're right. I have countless— I mean, in this case we're talking about heterosexual men, but we don't need to restrict it only to— I mean, there are a lot of gay couples. Yeah. Together, right, in the same. And then there are the masculine, the feminine presents itself there too. But, you know, I'm just, you know, trying to make it a little bit more general in this case. I think there are a lot of people who said we haven't come to this world to, you know, to be only strong and to serve women. We also have a responsibility towards ourselves. And of course, we, you know, We— and I think this is very important because then what happens if they, they have to be strong and serve women and to be protectors and saviors and knights in shining armor and all of this sort of rubbish in many ways that they have espoused, then they feel really resentful and they occupy the position of the victim. And then a lot of aggressivity and a lot of violence comes out of feeling like victims that they need to actually to to express their rage against being placed in a position that they need to always be strong and suffer in order to protect and save and rescue others, especially women. And then the opposite of the inverse of that is they become really violent in relationships because they occupy the position— they are the rescuers, so they become victims. And of course, by being victims, then they justify themselves in being perpetrators of violence. And that the whole triangle of abuse just, you know, is recycled. But do you think that's partly because, um, being a man with the energy, the passion to use your physical energy, the masculine— whether it's in women or not, actually women are showing that just as much today, you know, in athletics and boxing and so on— if that hasn't got an outlet, then you're stuck with that, actually you're going to not only either internalize it or actually put that onto your partner. You've got to learn that we all have, we all have, and, and sort of that sort of energy that we haven't actually progressed that much through time that we can actually subdue that energy well enough. So you can't just pour it onto your partner. Do you think there's a lot of expectations on our partners now? I think, I think there is something about the, the prototype of romantic love and romantic relationships, that how they, they were developed in the, you know, in the late '20s and currently, that we expect everything from our partners to be both companions, friends, lovers, you know, sexual objects, all sorts of things all at once. And, you know, and we forget that you know, this is almost an impossible task. We can't just find this just for one person. We need other people in our lives who can provide that. So I often say to men that, you know, they get— they, they, they, they enter into a partnership, uh, I say, well, you need to also, you know— and then they stop seeing their friends or they cut off some of it. But this is a different type of energy you need from your friends and you need from your partner. Right? You can't, you know, they then it feels like they start withdrawing, they don't see their friends as much, they don't have this type of camaraderie that they need, you know, to be brothers in arms, you know, that they need in a way which is outside of the relationship with a partner. And I think this is very important. And of course the same with women, they need their friends, they need this type of connection. Which is not restricting them only to expect one person to be everything for them. And I think this has become quite oppressive in relationships, I think. Yeah, and it's put on far too much of a burden. So you've not only got your internal burden, you've got your external burden there as well. And how do you activate yourself effectively in society? Yeah, and also, you know, it has double consequences, you know, further consequences in relationships. I often see in relationships that, you know, people who expect the partners to be everything, gradually they get— there is a kind of bubble they build and they get to know each other very well. And of course, you know, one of the first things that happens when you get to know someone so well is that desire goes out of the relationship because intimacy and closeness, you know, preclude the essential strangeness that is required to feel desirous of the other. So you need, you know, the other needs to be close enough but not too close and not too known so as not to have a desire to find more about them. Yeah, totally, you've got to have that mystery. There is some mystery that needs to be involved, and of course, you know, modern, you know, relationships that are based on this type of, you know, monogamous sort of romantic tradition, they have— they put a lot of pressure on people in order to enact some type of— a lot of pressure in order to enact both the sexual desirous part and as well as the intimate affection one, and to marry the two. It's a hard ask. And I'm not saying that shouldn't be— that is impossible. It's just simply hard, because there is nothing more harder than to feel desire and constant desire for people, the person you know very well, you know. Totally. Yeah, because you know their dark side, or what Jung calls the shadow. And somebody said the shadow was the, uh, combination of, uh, the eros and ego. Uh, no, eros— no, not the shadow. So love was romantic love was the meeting of Eros and the shadow. Yes, yes, I quite like that. That you see that, that side of somebody, and often we're drawn to somebody who has got a similar shadow and or a complementary shadow to our own. And then you've got Eros, you know, that love. But, you know, we don't have enough words for love, do we? You're Greek, you know that. And, uh, you know, sort of saying But here we're talking about— Parsifal is talking about agape, love for the world and spiritual love, right? And somehow we've lost— we don't talk about that because it's actually equally burdened with the religion. And each religion colors that basic meaning with other sort of rules, regulations that we can all fall into that might not suit us. And I'm not saying that religion is bad. I quite like many religious ethos because as long as people behave kindly towards each other, it keeps you in a moral place. Because if you don't have, if you cannot manage yourself, how can you manage the rest of the world? What we're talking about, what's the difference here? Who am I? Who am I in this world? Who am I in my relation to my partner, in relation to my partner? Who am I? What the hell am I doing here? Yes, whom does the Grail serve here? Exactly. I think this is a very important question. In many ways, um, there is this desire for transcendence that, you know, on some level, to serve something that is bigger than oneself, uh, to serve, you know, I think Jung will say to move from ego to self, right? So there is, there is something about about what is— is it just me or something bigger here? And I think we have— and that bigger doesn't need to be necessarily in terms of spirituality. It can be something that serves a bigger political meaningful purpose or anything else that escapes one's sort of narrow sort of individual position, ego position in a way in one's life. So it's against individualism and pointing towards something bigger than one's And of course, that can be quite tricky, and I can see perhaps why, you know, the Nazis can exploit that, you know. Yeah, they can take, oh, we serve Germany or the Führer or, you know, something bigger than oneself and, you know, the community. And I think we need to be careful with that as well. But on the other hand, there is something there still, this question. I think the exploitation of the question by Nazis or any sort of, you know, extremist ideology, it's quite dangerous, but it points towards a real need, a real need to serve something that is bigger than you and not simply your own individualistic needs. Yeah, because let's put the Nazis to the side, but it's such a powerful concept, you know, sort of what happened there. But from the internal perspective, to know that you have a reason to be here, let's say, all the roads— I look at my life and I think, well, how the hell did you get here? As I'm sure you do. You know, my parents are Polish. And there was no way when I started my life, I was ever going to be doing— in my, you know, in their eyes, that I was ever going to be doing what I'm doing. And I think it's quite interesting that you have to not only get your own drive, what you need, but also what's given to you from the outside. And it's— that's what I think is we must look for what's accepted from us, that life puts you in a certain direction as well and says, try this, try that. So it gives you a hidden— so a story, a myth that you tap into can also be helpful as a guide. To what we need. So when I was looking at Passmore myself, I actually thought, well, what's this got to do with me? Why does this mean something to me as a woman? Now, I was in business as well, so I understand the role of, you know, saving the wounded father. My, my parents, I think you know, were prisoners of war, and there was a lot of wound and a lot of trauma in my background as I was growing up. But more than that, my father— neither my father nor my mother— but lived out their true potential. And somehow as a child you pick that up. You don't know what you're picking up, but you pick something up. Yes. And you know that you've got something more to do than what you're doing, or— and you don't know how to hold on to it. So the myth gives you a storyline that you can say, actually, I can do this. I can get over this obstacle. I can get over this because there's more of a meaning here, even though you can't see it. Yes, yes, yes. But I think there is something also about, um, Parsifal and his, his innocence and his, you know, foolishness in inverted commas, which of course is not a fool, it's just innocent. And the appeal that that has to, to the sense of, you know, because he's such a fool, he's able to escape the, the trappings of the world, which are, you know, of passion, desire, of all of the things that, you know, of anger, of envy, of, you know. But then, you know, in some way he also finds them in front of him when he confronts the Red Knight, right? And he kills the Red Knight. It's almost like he needs to see this side of him too. There is something about him that, although he's a fool, there is something quite aggressive that he can own as well. And, and the journey of Parsifal is very much journey of someone who's, who's also feel very restricted by maternal care, um, and he doesn't want to let his mother down. So he follows quite a lot of his advice until he finds himself at some point where, you know, after, as you said, he's done all of this. I think, you know, in a version of the myth he's going to the Grail Castle the first time and he doesn't ask the question, right? And then he comes back later in life, 20, 30 years later, and then when he's done all of these adventures and now more mature and more, you know, he's able to ask the question to the Fisher King. And, you know, and in that, in a way, he's meeting he's able to find the Grail again and to find the, the physical thing. But, uh, but in many ways he had to, he had to actually let go some of this attachment to this early sort of maternal parental objects in order to be able to, to individuate and become his own and be able to ask the question that actually one of his mentors at the beginning, he said that this is what he needed to ask. To ask that question. Yeah, and I think it's, it's very important to be able, you know, and, and in many ways it reminds me of therapy, that how much we, we say, well, we have to accept your parents for the limitations and let them go. As you said with your own partners, they were not able to fulfill their own potential. Let them go and not be burdened by the history in order to be able then to become your own man or woman, in order to be able to ask these questions the questions that are relevant to you. Absolutely. I think it's such a powerful thing, not just in my life, but I think in most people's lives. If they look at their parents and see what have they taught them, as opposed to blaming them, carrying that sort of complex that takes you— he eventually does take off the clothing his mother gave, but at that point she died. You know, she didn't die, he didn't kill her, it was just she was bereft. This is the 12th century, let's let's be honest. But I still think this is also a woman's role. A woman's job is to, once the child grows, is to be prepared to live your life again. You've got to let your child go. You can't protect your child all the time, you know. And women, um, when a boy is growing up— and I do think the mother complex, as it's often called, I think boys can carry a mother complex because the mother can burden a boy with a complex. Yes, the mother was protected, but also the mother can be sort of saying that, you know, your father did this, or, you know, something— the patriarchal society is so nasty, you can't be that person. So that when they go into the world and they do encounter their red knight, that, you know, their internal red knight that all of us have Let's pretend it just belongs to men. All of us have a red knight. He has— he fights with it and kills the red knight, by which it means you internalize it, you learn to grapple with it, you fight with it, you struggle, and you go, right, this is that me I must recognize when it comes into the fall. But a lot of women are trying to dampen that side. No, don't look at your red knight. You mustn't be angry, you mustn't show aggression, you mustn't show that side of yourself instead It's saying, yes, you have got that, and it can come to the fore. There is moral justification to be angry at times, but how do you use it? When do you use it? And at what point? So for example, I've worked with soldiers, and I remember— and I, you know, must take my hat off to soldiers because they go out and they fight on my behalf— and one of them said, well, Maria, we do for you so you don't have to. Yes, yes, yes. I don't have to go into battle. You know, we're not Russians or Ukrainians at this moment having to fight, but that's what soldiers do, and they have to have a red knight somewhere, and they have to activate that for us because they believe in the bigger sense of the world that they're protecting us. I know, I understand. I think I would like also to focus on the fact that a lot of mothers, especially, you know, Pársipás' mother, but mothers along the way, they feel that their lives were so restricted with very few options that they were not able, like the women of today, to have options and to have choices in a way. So in many ways, they use the boys and, and, and, you know, and, and their sons as an extension of themselves. That's something we'll put out there in the world. And in order to— so they were very possessive and very, very— and then of course the mother complex, as you call it, becomes something that, you know, a son feels constantly responsible. He doesn't want to let his mother down or kill his mother in inverted commas. And I think this is, this is very, very important because You know, this is part of the question that I said a lot of men ask, you know, I haven't come to this world to serve my mother or to serve women like my mother or to become, you know, like my father. I have choices, I have options in a way. I don't want to be, and of course I don't want to be with a woman who is passive like this, who, you know, who doesn't assume she's not a subject in her own right. Able to assume their own responsibility. And I don't want the mother of my children to be, you know, like my mother and burden their children with that responsibility. And I think, you know, I think it's quite honorable on some that things are changing and lift the burden from, you know, from both mothers and children to serve, to play certain roles which were traditionally ascribed, and to have more multiplicity and, you know, to engage with different sort of positions in a way. And but at the same time, we still have been stuck with a lot of expectations and a lot of complexes that they have passed through the generations, and we carry this and we have to work through them in order to individuate like, like Parsifal and ask the questions that are relevant to us and others, you know. Yeah, and that's the big question. But coming back to relationships again, because our lives are all about relationships, aren't they? Let's face it, in one form or another. And coming back to a relationship, and you become a mother, or you become a father, or you go into a relationship, and suddenly somebody reminds you of the father. If you're conscious, you can say, ah, that part reminds me of my father, but it's all of them. If you're unconscious, that person is— then that clothing is taken off the boy, the boy takes it off, or the girl takes it off, because she'll wearing something herself and then puts it onto her partner. If you're both unconscious, that's where the problem comes in. Yes, exactly. Yes. And I think, I think there is something, you know, uh, there is something about being able to recognize— I mean, having— one of the things about psychoanalysis that I think is very valuable, uh, and, or analytical psychology for that matter, is the idea that you are able to have this piece of information that are missing, so you can have more choice in your life. In many ways, there are things that we turn a blind eye to that right in front of us and we don't see. And that, but that is a kind of errors of omission that we see, but we turn a blind eye. I think this is more like what Sartre called bad faith, that you see something but you don't want to act on it because is inconvenient or it makes you uncomfortable or is against some beliefs that we have which are not really valid, but you have to uphold them. But there are other bits of information, the unconscious part, the part of the past generations, and they are really deeply rooted inside us that we are not aware of. And that's where, you know, you transfer this to the other without realizing. And by becoming more aware, both of these sort of roles that you've been given and these assumptions, unconscious assumptions that you carry, and relationally changing them, then relationships can improve. But because then you realize that there's not just one way, there isn't just one reality, there are choices, you can be playful. You know, you don't need to end up only one way. You don't need to end up like your mother and father. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You can have, you have options because in many ways you realize that there is a part of you that might want something unconsciously, but there is another part that has some type of control over it. I mean, not completely, but there's some type of control and able to regulate it and regulate one's emotions according to what, to what you feel. Anyway, I, I think, I think this is, this is very crucial and If anything, you know, in many respects I feel that, um, uh, Parsifal also has to come to terms with his own sort of maternal and paternal images, but to be able to, to ask the right questions. And to, for him, what do I want? What does the Grail serve for me? Not just for the Fisher King, right? Yeah. And he must have been searching He's searching for a father figure and then he finds a father figure who's wounded. Yes, yes, yes. But you see, this is the other crucial thing, and that's why I think it's very important for our times, because the father figure in our times has been wounded. Yes. And very irreparably. I agree. And I think, you know, on some level that creates a kind of gap in the way that we deal, you know, internally, psychologically, with our paternal images and how we are able to deal with authority, both internal and external. And I think it's become a real issue, you know, again and again, about how— what is the place of the father, both in the family but also internally in one's life. And it's not simply a wounded father, but now we're talking about absent father or a father that has been almost like, you know, assassinated and it's not been able to— it's become like a ghost in the machine. And, you know, and how do we actually find the place for fatherhood again, fathers and men who want to be fathers, and what does it mean for us, especially in the 21st century where, you know, on some level patriarchy has been mortally wounded but also is stronger than ever. It's a kind of paradox, right? You know, fathers are mortally wounded, but also, you know, the paternal power of this primal father who is very tyrannical and is also like, you know, Putin-like figures. They become the kind of the norm since there is no mediation about the real father who is, you know, who's both good and bad and his He's an everyday father who struggles, you know, but manages to, with his wounds, to be able to be present. But unfortunately, now we got rid of this father and we're left with all these very exuberant, tyrannical paternal figures that resemble the totem and taboo myth of the primal father. You know what's so interesting? When you take it outside the family, it's almost as if then you've got these, you know, sort of work And we've got the corporations, which also women buy into and become, you know, in that, that patriarchal, tyrannical— they take that on, although they dress as women, they look like women, but internally they are exactly who they railed against. Yes. So in our society, what we've not really managed to do is to balance the true feminine and the true masculine, you know, the logos, the word that defines something, gives you ease at which, uh, what is going on here, the word, but also the concept that women, you know, the feminine brings in the creative, the chaos, let's say. And then you take the chaos, which is, you know, sort of mythologically is feminine, then you put it through a form which is masculine and you create something wonderful. Together. Women are just falling into the same traps, and I'm not surprised we're still in that trap because women don't realize that they're just going, well, yes, so if a woman was running this country, I hear over and over again, she would be so different. Well, no, she wouldn't necessarily, because she still has to make the same decisions. We have examples, recent examples of it. Yeah, we do. But if you take the world at the moment, I do think that's a step outside ourselves and that impacts on us. You know, how do we see ourselves in this world? What are we doing here? How do we actually play out? And I think so coming back to the sentiment that we were sort of talking about, how the Nazis rose to power was very much because they had felt inferior. They had felt that they had been punished. If you take that as a storyline that we must not fall into in our own lives, let's look at it like that. So they had been punished. They, they had— were aiming for this grandiose life, you know, we're going to be— we are the heroes of their, their world, the, the Germanic world. And then suddenly they lose everything. They're being punished. Now what Hitler did is, no, we are the Superman. We are these powerful people, and it doesn't matter whether you're male or female. If you adopt that, you're doing exactly the same. Yes, the same way. Exactly. Yes, I agree with you, Maria. I think there is— I think if anything, um, also is the perversion of— again, with Hitler, is the perversion of the, the um, with— of the paternal sort of imago that I was talking about, and of a tyrannical figure that substitutes, you know, the, the good enough father, uh, and, uh, and becomes something that, you know, takes over because, you know, the father is wounded. So let's, let's replace him with someone who is— replace him with someone who never can be wounded. He's beyond any, any inferiority, beyond any sort of vulnerability, and he's always strong and, you know, a Superman in a way himself. But, but you look at Hitler, you know, he didn't look like a Superman at all. He was a kind of— it's very interesting that all these so-called sort of, um, extremist leaders are a mixture of, uh, of King Kong and the Barber of Seville. It's so true. Yeah, it's like they are quite clownesque in a way. Yes. At the same time, they pretend to be these sort of super, Superman figures. I mean, I could say that about Trump, about Putin. They're so little and so, you know, but there's something clownesque about them. But, you know, all of a sudden they pretend to be this super, you know, tyrannical sort of, you know, exhibitionist figures. And you, you just, you just hear that, but at the same time, At the same time, what Parsifal tells us and what the myth itself communicates, which is very important, is like, you know, the wounded father can be healed internally. And, you know, we can carry him not as a figure of oppression, but as someone who can help us in our journey, who can be like— we can understand that he's another human being who is limited, flawed, fallible, but has his own wounds as we do. And we can, we can understand it, you know, you know, have this compassion towards ourselves and towards the father and, you know, see him as a brother in suffering, you know, you know. I think that's so important. And I think the more we understand that, the more we understand that the father image is far more— even if we don't have a father, the archetype of the father is also at times vulnerable, is weak, becomes weakened by circumstance, cannot live to their fullest potential. And frankly, most people can't, you know, life's too hard. They, you know, you have struggles in life and they're given to you unexpectedly. So it's almost as if we are destined in our world to have all these handicaps. It's almost like a big puzzle. You come in, and if it's not your body that gives up, you're going to get something from the outside that is an obstacle. You have an accident or something happens that actually derails you from your mission. I think it's understanding that that can happen to you, but you can come back from that. You can make something, and it's to look for those signs. So what are you doing here is absolutely the important one. And as you, as you said, it doesn't have to be on a spiritual nature, but if it spiritual, that's good too because it can be a guide. But if it— what do you do to influence others and how do you affect others? I think one of the biggest, best questions I ever ask anybody is, how do you think people see you? Because we, and as therapists, we talk to people, we open up that conversation, they open up to us, and very often they are impacted by others And yet we, you know, so they never think, oh, how does everybody see me? Who am I to other people? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Who am I to other people? And I think this is, this is very crucial. But there is also the sense of, of if, if there is something that they need to, to— it's not simply to be liked or to be appreciated. But also there is something about a kind of internal integrity. You can have both though, can't you? Yes, I mean, the one doesn't exclude the other, but I think there is, you know, there is something about serving something that is bigger than yourself, but it doesn't need to be something that is already external and you have to find, but, you know, it can be something that is something that is created, something that is co-created with others, something that is found within, you know, within something that you create in a group with others, or something that you create, something that feels that is not simply there to satisfy your wants or needs, but it escapes this and creates desire. Because I think a lot of problems come from confusing need with desire. And I think the need, the need is always something that needs immediate gratification. You know, how can I satisfy my need? And of course we need that in order to survive. We need to satisfy our needs up to the level, but there is something quite urgent about this. But you know, there is something also about how we can postpone that, how we can manage, how we can manage desire as a way of enjoying it and playing with it without feeling the oppression of need. Yeah, without feeling, oh, I need to satisfy it right now, instead of allowing it to unfold and extend and, you know, include others in it, you know, without having to, to feel to impose it or oppress someone in order to satisfy oneself. I think there is something quite, quite important in that, in that sense, uh, um, How do you manage, how do you manage satisfaction without making it immediate? How do you satisfy your needs but allow playful desire to be playful? Yeah, and also it's that if you are in relation with somebody else, how your need doesn't overwhelm the other, that they are your servant for your need, not desire. You know, and there's a lot of this that we are in society shifting so radically, you know. I think we are creating, or certain people are creating slaves out of others. So everything they fight against, they're creating in their own worlds. But I do think the power of therapy is enormous, you know. And I do think that people just question that. What am I doing here? It's such a big question for a lot And I think the more we do open that door to that question— what am I doing? Who do I blindly serve? Do I have to? But you see, there are, you know, I can see that the place for very reflective, open-ended, and also inquisitive therapies that you and I, you know, seem to espouse, um, is becoming— is very important. And I think it's important than ever. But I think what I find more and more, and I think this comes as a kind of way of replacing one's own internal regulation and defensive structure, is having to use external sort of measures in order to make oneself feel comfortable within oneself. We cannot have this internal strength and power to to stay with her emotions, to feel how overwhelming they are, to have a sense without pathologizing them, to manage difficult situations without necessarily trying to fix it either with medication or with some form of very quick form of therapy to placate our wounds. And instead of staying with it, we're learning from it. And actually being able to bear these emotions with the presence of another, who is able to reflect with us and hold us and contain these emotions while we're able to do that ourselves. And I think this is becoming quite worrying for me, because the more people, you know, find themselves in places where they have to rely on external measures to, to do the internal work, the less internal sort of strength they will acquire. And they will— that's why I think one of the biggest problems in our times is addiction into different types of things, whether it is drugs, whether it's medication, whether it is, you know, sort of, you know, sex, porn, or anything. It's becoming, it's becoming a big, big problem because they're artificial sort of crutches to maintain a self that is collapsing and fragmented. And I think we are, we are experiencing something very, um, very, uh, first of all, an ego that perhaps needs to be open up and, you know, fragmented in order to explore something deeper, you know, the desire that lies beyond the ego structure. But then, you know, how do we maintain a sense of continuity when, when the old structures collapse? And I think, um, what, you know, there's so much in what you've said, and I do agree with that. But I do think that, as you say, some people, along with their alcohol, drugs, drug, sex, rock and roll is the element of the self-help. You can solve your life in one go, you know, I will wave a magic wand and it'll all be okay. Nirvana, you know, I'll take a little bit of ayahuasca and I'll touch nirvana and then I'll come back down and then they go, oh no, it's still real life, you know, and it's so disappointing and people are so disappointed nowadays. Yes, I keep giving, you know, All these people, they do all— I mean, I think it's important to try different things, but fundamentally come to the realization that these things don't last. And unless you do the work, you know, the real reflective hard work, you know, with the presence of another human being who's able to facilitate, understand, hold you, and, you know, be able to witness your suffering— unless you stay with these emotions, you'll never be able to, to to find the internal strength to carry on through life without relying on all these external measures to get you through. And I think it's, you know, the human potential that gets wasted this way is just enormous. You know, I think we are also living in a society that doesn't care anymore about human potential. That, you know, it can be wasted, it doesn't matter anymore as long as it serves certain productive purposes. I think it's a great shame, and we're gonna feel the consequences of that, of this lack of care for this human potential in the near future very intensely. Because we— it's not simply that we don't care about, you know, the Earth or what we do to it. We don't care about, you know, the environment. We don't care about each other. We don't care about ourselves in many ways, and we don't This lack of care in many ways shows in the lack of wasting of potential by not following the road less traveled. Yes, totally. And I think what you're finding— finding very quick fixes to manage things that need a lot of hard work sometimes. But you know what we talk about in a therapeutic relationship? It is a relationship. Somebody witnesses you to the depth of your core. They take, you know, symbolically into that forest. Yes. And ride your horse, you encounter the Red Knight, you encounter the damsels, you go through everything, then you find your father is wounded, and you have to go back again. And this is the reality of life. And everybody needs that. And we're losing that. And I think what you've said is very powerful. We're losing this, this sense of fight, you know, finding with fighting with our own ghosts, struggling with them, containing, you know, negative emotions, or negative in inverted commas, just emotions, regulating them, managing disappointment, managing failure, but also managing enjoyment and pleasure, which is also very important because addictive pleasure is not pleasure. Pleasure. It's just a quick fix. It's not real pleasure because it takes— it's in many ways substitutes love for lust, you know. And I think real love, it has to face a lot of upheavals and obstacles and consequences that are difficult to deal, and it has to persevere. Whereas lust comes and goes, you know, and it's never It doesn't have this sense of continuity. And I think these are things that you learn to do in a relationship with another, because that's how you learned them at the beginning of life. You need to unlearn them and relearn them with someone else. Yes, disintegrate to reintegrate. That's right. And identify those parts that are still with you, but you've got to look at them anew and start all over again. And all the poetry tells us that, and that's why mythology and poetry is so powerful, because it reminds us. And I think, I think there is something also about Parsifal, and, you know, and how, how it resonates with us today, but also how it resonated with Dostoevsky as well when he wrote The Idiot, right? Yes. It's quite, it's a theme that, you know, although it appeals to a lot of Christian writers, it's also, you know, Dostoevsky's The Idiot is just more than a Christian novel, right? Far more than that. And it's a superb novel that describes the power of what happens when you place as a central character someone who is innocent like this and how it explodes all the different sort of assumptions you have about one's life. And I think that's what "Particle" does in the center of the story, as a central character of the story, it explodes all of these sort of different assumptions that people have about passion, about love, about lust, about, you know, you place a central innocent character in there, and then you see things unfold and crumble around him. Well, what I loved about— we'll have to tie up because we can continue for a long time, and it's so fascinating talking to you. Um, to tie up with comedy, you know, sort of, because, uh, when I see comedians on stage, which is less and less, which is very sad, not through their own doing, they were exploring these themes. And in the British culture and in the culture of many kingly courts, royal courts, there was always the fool who had one day as an opportunity to turn everything the king said, or queen, on its head. Yes. And that's what we're talking about. You need that.