Down to Our Mythical Roots

Abstract

Based on developmental psychological data recorded by Mahler (Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975), this article presents a schema for the classification, understanding, and treatment of scripts in which mythic paradigms are related to types of child-mother interactions from the first two years of life.

Transactionally, the environmental interactions referred to in the data recorded by Mahler (1968) and Mahler, Pine, and Bergman (1975) summarize the psychic apparatus of the models of Child-Parent interactions developed in the first years of life, which are portrayed in their pure form in ancient myths. Hartman (1980) and English (1976) showed that specific myths connect with specific stages of development. Matching them is useful not only for systematizing script analysis (Hartman, 1980), but also for the practice of psychotherapy.

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