Obama, McClellan, and Guilt the Promethean Way

by Lawrence H. Staples

In the conventional view, guilt is important because it helps us remain "good." It helps protect society's boundaries. While the conventional view of guilt is part of the truth, it is not the whole truth. The meaning of guilt is far more complicated.

While guilt does play an important role in the maintenance of society's stability, it also creates an enormous problem. It can deter us from being "bad" when that is exactly what is needed. Increasingly, during my years of work as a psychoanalyst, it became clear to me that if individuals could not sin, and then suffer the subsequent guilt, they could not fully develop themselves and their gifts. If individuals could not develop fully, neither could society, as society is a sum of the individuals that comprise it. I began to wonder what human development would look like, if all of us could actually live innocently behind the barbed wire fence of guilt that convention erects to separate us from forbidden territory, and its forbidden fruit. I was curious as to what kind of fruit might come from trees that grow only on conventionally sanctioned ground. Would we have had a Socrates, or a Galileo, or a Solzhenitsyn or a Rushdie?

My suspicions about the exclusive value of a life of innocence led me to an idea I call "Good Guilt". The idea was born from the commonplace observation that there are times in our lives when the experience of guilt actually was a signal of having done something good, even essential to nurture us. While the guilt probably did not feel like "Good Guilt" at the time of transgression, the "sin" that caused the guilt is sometimes viewed in retrospect as having brought something valuable to our lives. Examples might include divorces, separations from partners and friends, giving up family-approved or family-dictated careers, or even marriages that are opposed by one's family on the grounds of race, religion, gender, or social status. It might also include the expression of qualities previously rejected as unacceptable, like anger and selfishness. Later in life we may look at guilt thus incurred in a different light.

There are many examples of "Good Guilt." Two recent examples are Barack Obama and Scott McClellan. No doubt they suffered guilt as a result of their decisions to sever relations with beloved church in the case of Barack Obama, and beloved leader and current political regime in the case of Scott McClellan. It is "Good Guilt" because what they did needed to be done for the country, their own interests, and their souls. In these cases, guilt, which is inevitable, should nevertheless be incurred and borne.

In the struggle between the conflicting human tendencies to be both "good" and "bad," there is a problem, if we try to be exclusively good. We may, by staying inside the fence, avoid being castigated by society. We may also avoid castigating ourselves with self-punishing guilt. In the process, however, we also avoid large parts of our self. In so doing, we may please parents and society, but sin against our self.

Reflections on the well-known myth of Prometheus reinforced my unconventional line of thought concerning guilt. This myth tells us Prometheus stole fire from the gods and made it available for use by humans. He suffered for his sin. Zeus had him chained to a rock where an eagle pecked and tore daily at his liver. But human society would have suffered if he had not committed it. Thus, the life of Prometheus portrays a mythological model for guilt that is different from the conventional view. The Promethean model of guilt suggests the importance of sinning and incurring guilt in order to obtain needed—but forbidden things. This is the conclusion I reach in my recently published book, Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way, except that I state the case a bit stronger. I assert that we must sin and incur guilt, if we are to grow and reach our full potential.

"Life inevitably confronts us with the Promethean dilemma: Do we live our lives without fire and the heat and light it provides, or do we sin and incur guilt to achieve the important developments we need? The contribution virtue can make to society must be acknowledged. There indeed are sins that are destructive; there also are sins that benefit."

I have also concluded that we miss the point, if we think guilt has only a moral function. Guilt is in many ways morally neutral. We can feel guilty if we work too hard or too little. We can feel guilty if we are too assertive or not assertive enough. A woman feels guilty if she has a career and she feels guilty if she doesn't have one. We might feel guilty, if we refuse to steal, while we watch our children die of starvation. We can feel guilty at either of the opposite poles. An important purpose of guilt, in my view, is to compensate, to help keep one side of the opposites from hijacking the psyche and driving the other side out. Here, guilt's purpose is not the maintenance of morals; it is the maintenance of the opposites and psychic wholeness. It follows, then, that guilt is an important instrument in the psyche's system of self-regulation. Just as our physical body has a mechanism of homeostasis, where, for example, we sweat automatically to cool ourselves when we get overheated, so our psyche has a similar mechanism.

"Despite its contribution to psychic stability, guilt disturbs our emotional and mental tranquility. Like Prometheus, we suffer the pain of guilt, even if it was incurred for something beneficial. Promethean Guilt contains the seeds of its own atonement. What is "sinfully" and "guiltily" acquired is given back to the community as an expiation."

An important lesson we need to learn is simply this: If we are feeling guilty, we should not be too quick to conclude or interpret that those feelings of guilt necessarily mean that we are doing something "bad". We may actually be doing something "good" for our own growth as well as society's. The guilt feelings always need to be acknowledged and always, and I emphasize always, need to be examined and evaluated on their merits and in accordance with one's conscience. But it is important to note that the meaning of guilt is probably far more complicated than we have ever been taught.

About the Author:
After receiving AB and MBA degrees from Harvard, Lawrence Staples spent the next 22 years with a Fortune 500 company, where he became an officer and a corporate vice president. When he was 50, he made a midlife career change and entered the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, Switzerland, where he spent nine years in training to become a psychoanalyst. Lawrence has a Ph.D. in psychology and a Diploma in Analytical Psychology from the Zurich Institute.

Learn more about the many Lawrence Staples publications. 

The Church, The Shadow, Homosexuality

article by Rev. Anthony J. DeLuca, Ph.D.

This essay is written in response to statements of the Catholic League president specifically on the matter of homosexuality. I have the feeling that people may play the numbers game according to their own prior convictions. I think the problem here is not distinguishing within the wide range of homosexual behavior similar to the wide range of heterosexual behavior. In quoting the John Jay College of Criminal Justice report stating that 81% of the victims were male and accordingly perpetrated by homosexuals, there are no distinctions made within homosexuality. Thus it tars with the same brush all homosexuals.

Further, when the report says that the majority of the victims were post-pubescent, this can be misleading because of the particular authority being employed. The mental health community in the United States and agencies in many other parts of the world, use the standard manual of mental health diagnosis – namely the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV TR. In this manual’s criteria for pedophilia, the ages given to be so qualified are 13 and under. When we examine the John Jay Report in the breakdown sections of age (male and female), we find 6% age 7 or less; 16% age 8-10; and 38% age 11-13. Thus 60% according to the DSM IV TR meet the criteria for pedophilia, These perpetrators were both heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles with a majority of homosexual orientation. These figures address neither the entire heterosexual or homosexual population. The majority of the general population of heterosexuals and homosexuals chose an age appropriate sexual object.

Our Unique Identity

by Lawrence H. Staples
author of Guilt with a Twist

Ultimately, the creative act of self-development results in the formation of our unique identity. It is the most particular manifestation of our self. We all have a unique identity, not just Picasso or Einstein or Beethoven or Frank Lloyd Wright. We are not conscious of our unique identity until we have done a lot of work on our selves. People who study art, music, literature, or architecture can identify the painter’s, composer’s, author’s, or architect’s work without seeing a signature. They know that the painting was by Caravaggio or Manet, or that a piece of music was written by Stravinsky or Wagner, or a book by Hemingway, or that a building was designed by Louis Kahn or Frank Lloyd Wright. The creative product of the artist is his signature, and we recognize it because we have studied his work.

Each of us also has a unique signature. But, we must pay attention to our selves and do our own work in depth, if we are to recognize our own signature. We must do this for the same reason we must study artists to know their works. Thus, an important part of the work of discovering our selves is creative production and in-depth analysis. With time and effort we can come to know and recognize our own special signatures. Our physical identity is more readily visible and accessible than our psychic identity. There is always something unique in our physical identity; for example, the parents and siblings of identical twins can usually tell them apart. We have mirrors and can see our physical selves.

It is far more difficult to “see” our psychic selves. There are no psychic mirrors readily available to us, unless we had exceptional parents who could fully, without harsh judgment, reflect our selves back to us. We may still be able to see our psychic selves if we find a therapist who will do for us what our parents could not.

Creative work can also help us see our selves. Creative work is a mirror that can reflect our selves back to us if we pay enough attention.

In his book, The Restoration of the Self, Heinz Kohut wrote at length about psychically wounded people and the therapeutic methods he used to help them. He found none more effective, or so essential, as creative work. He found, importantly, that it made no difference whether the creative work was deemed good or artistic by any standards. The simple process of doing creative work helped restore the self. It is as if nature plants within us a built-in remedy for our worst affliction, the affliction of being separated from large parts of ourselves. We experience this separation as a kind of inner civil war that divides us internally. It produces the pain and suffering inherent in any civil war, whether in our internal world or outside. It seems that the human urge to do creative work, to heal and restore our wholeness, is a compensatory impulse and blessing that arises from the psychic civil war that wounded us. In my own work as a psychoanalyst, I have witnessed the truth of Kohut’s findings. I have watched patients grow in wholeness as they began to work creatively in a variety of media that helped them recover and restore cut off parts of themselves.

Creative work actually serves as a kind of inner parent that compensates for the flawed parenting we may have had as children. Creative work mirrors us in a way we were often not mirrored by our parents. Creative work mirrors us for the simple reason that we can see projected in it, if we look and interpret carefully, our own psychological and spiritual selves. Mirrors in all their manifold guises help restore the wounded self.

Press Release: Guilt with a Twist

With Great Pleasure, Fisher King Press announces the publication of:

Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way

"Our hunger for the forbidden fruit grows as we get older and our need for it increases. By midlife, we often sense that something important is missing. Then the "unacceptable," "sinful" parts of ourselves that have been rejected begin to clamor with ever greater insistence to participate in our lives." -Larry Staples, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst and author of Guilt with a Twist

Promethean guilt is the guilt we incur for the sins that we need to commit if we are to achieve, both for our selves and for our society, some of the social, political, economic, scientific, psychological, and other changes and developments that we most deeply need to sustain and nourish us. Myth tells us that Prometheus stole fire from the gods and made it available for human use. He suffered for this sin, but human society would have suffered if he had not committed it. There indeed are sins that are destructive to society, but the paradox is that there are also sins that inure ultimately to society's benefit.

With a spirit similar to what moved Galileo, Copernicus, Socrates, Rosa Parks, and Susan B. Anthony to violate conventional boundaries, Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way suggests that 'Good Guilt' is incurred for the sins we need to commit if we are to grow and reach our full potential as individuals, as well as a society. "'Sins' that benefit us," Staples claims, "could not be committed without a creative, Promethean spirit that is supported by an obstinate and irreverent insolence toward authority that is informed by a love of freedom."

Lawrence Staples shows us how guilt may not particularly feel so 'good' at the time of a transgression, yet in retrospect the perceived 'sin' that originated feelings of guilt often turns out to be of great value materially, as well as spiritually. This timely publication sheds light and brings valuable meaning to feelings that for ages humanity has deemed 'bad' and undesirable and will benefit many who suffer from life's existential pains brought on by divorce, separations, addictions, and a host of socially imposed rules that crush the spirits of those who challenge prejudice attitudes toward race, religion, gender, and other social norms.

Life inevitably confronts us with the Promethean dilemma: Do we live our lives without fire and the heat and light it provides or do we sin, and subsequently incur guilt, in order to obtain for ourselves and for society those important changes and developments that we need?

After receiving AB and MBA degrees from Harvard, Larry Staples spent the next 22 years with a Fortune 500 company, where he became an officer and a corporate vice president. When he was 50, he made a midlife career change and entered the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, Switzerland, where he spent the next nine years in training to become a Jungian psychoanalyst. After graduation, he returned to the United States and opened a private practice in Washington, DC, where he continues to work as a licensed psychoanalyst (Jungian). Lawrence has a Ph.D. in psychology; his special areas of interest are the problems of midlife, guilt, and creativity.

To order your copy visit fisherkingpress.com or call +1-831-238-7799

Fisher King to publish 'Enemy, Cripple & Beggar' by Erel Shalit

With Great Pleasure Fisher King Press announced today:

Available August 2008 from Fisher King Press:

Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path
by Erel Shalit

In Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path, Erel Shalit provides new thoughts and views on the concepts of Hero and Shadow. From a Jungian perspective, this forthcoming Fisher King Press publication will elaborate on mythological and psychological images. Myths and fairy tales explored include Perseus and Andersen’s The Cripple. You’ll also enjoy the psychological deciphering of Biblical stories such as Amalek—The Wicked Warrior, Samson—The Impoverished Sun, and Jacob & the Divine Adversary. With the recent discovery of The Gospel of Judas, Dr. Shalit also delves into the symbolic relationship between Jesus and Judas Iscariot to illustrate the hero-function’s inevitable need of a shadow. Clinical material concerning a case of a powerful erotic counter-transference is also an integral part of this deeply insightful body of work.

The Hero is that aspect of our psyche, or in society, who dares to venture into the unknown, into the shadow of the unconscious, bringing us in touch with the darker aspects in our soul and in the world. In fact, it is the hero whom we send each night into the land of dreams to bring home the treasures of the unconscious. He, or no less she, will have to struggle with the Enemy that so often is mis-projected onto the detested Other, learn to care and attend to the Cripple who carries our crippling complexes and weaknesses, and develop respect for the shabby Beggar to whom we so often turn our backs—for it is the 'beggar in need' who holds the key to our inner Self.

As with Erel Shalit’s previously published book The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego, comprehensive views of the concepts and images of the Shadow and the Hero are provided and theory further explored. While directed toward an audience of analysts and Jungian oriented psychotherapists and clinicians, Enemy, Cripple, & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path can be comfortably read as well by an informed lay public interested in Analytical Psychology and Psychoanalysis, and by those interested in the interface between psychology and mythology, and psychology and religion.

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra'anna, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology (ISAP). He is the author of several publications, including The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego. Several of his Articles have appeared in Quadrant, The Jung Journal, Spring Journal, Political Psychology, Clinical Supervisor, Round Table Review, Jung Page, Midstream, and he has entries in The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Dr. Shalit has taught at the Department of Psychotherapy, Tel Aviv University Medical School, and lectures at professional institutes, universities, and cultural forums in Israel, Europe, and the United States.

Order directly from Fisher King Press or call +1-831-238-7799