The Image in the Labyrinth: An Artist's Symbolic Journey from Cancer Toward Wholeness

Taylor, Sofia Fillmore. (2003). The Image in the Labyrinth: An Artist's Symbolic Journey from Cancer Toward Wholeness (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2003). UMI No. 3119799.

Traumatized and dismembered by ovarian cancer and the removal of my internal female organs, I followed a healing path that took me from the deep darkness of loss to a healing consciousness, through drawing and painting the images in my dreams.

This heuristic production-type dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part presents a theoretical discussion of how a person may respond to a diagnosis of cancer, or any other serious, life-threatening illness. I explored the journey to healing by attending closely to the images emerging from my unconscious in dreams and in active imagination. Subsequently, I investigated and searched further into these images and symbols as drawings and paintings, presented to me as gifts from the unconscious.

In this work, I discuss these images and symbols from Jungian, alchemical and mythic perspectives, while I investigate how my roles as artist and feminist have shaped my experience. In addition, I pay close attention to what the medical community, both allopathic and alternative, have suggested on the subject of healing from serious illness.

The second part of this work consists of an illustrated memoir, a retelling of the autobiographical events that are the foundation of this story. I illustrate eighteen archetypal symbols from my dreams and search out their meaning during their emergence, as well as in analysis, throughout the writing of this dissertation, and into the present as they continue to unfold as living presences.

My journey through the unconscious presents for consideration the very real possibility, in fact the likelihood that the remnants of ancient mythologies lie buried within the images revealed in the unconscious. Further, I propose that the discovery of the myth each of us is living can be a cathartic, life-saving event.

This dissertation demonstrates how a fascination with mythology and depth psychology can become a practical tool for discovery and recovery from serious illness when a mythopoetic interpretation, a significance, is given to the events in one's conscious and unconscious life.