At the crossroads with Hecate An in-depth exploration of the phenomenology of melancholia in the practicing psychotherapist

Cook, J. M. (1998). At the crossroads with Hecate: An in-depth exploration of the phenomenology of melancholia in the practicing psychotherapist. (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 1998). UMI no. 9928671

This inquiry utilizes a phenomenological and heuristic design and methodology to explore the experience of melancholia in the practicing psychotherapist. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with a small sample of psychotherapists who suffered one or more significant melancholic episodes while continuing to meet with patients. The design of this inquiry focused on these questions: How do psychotherapists experience their melancholia in the consulting room, and what do they perceive its effects to be upon their clinical work? What is it like for them to be practicing psychotherapists while they are significantly melancholic? Six psychotherapists, all women, were interviewed in depth about their experiences. All of the participants had experienced one or more significant melancholias while continuing to meet with patients. The interviews were conducted in two phases. Phase 1 involved one taped interview, 1 1/2 hours long, from which a written “portrait” of the participant was constructed. Phase 2 consisted of a final 1-hour interview, during which the psychotherapist made corrections to her portrait and discussed her responses to the study. Excerpts from the researcher's own experience of melancholia while continuing to work as a psychotherapist were included. The participants' portraits provided a phenomenological view into the soul of the experience of melancholia in the practicing psychotherapist. They revealed the painful and often shrouded aspects of the wound of melancholia—one that originally drew the psychotherapists to their professions, and whose presence serves to connect them empathically to their own suffering, and through it, to the suffering of their patients. Although all of the participants experienced some degree of stigmatization within the profession and the culture, it was through their own therapies that each of the psychotherapists discovered a more depthful view of the dark experience of melancholia—a view that finds value and meaning in it. Emerging from the stories were hurtful memories of rejection by colleagues and friends, as well as personal remembrances of arduous journeys along an inner spiral way, psychological journeys that led to an enhanced awareness of how to carry consciously the wound of melancholia into all aspects of life, professional and personal.