The Masculine and the Feminine

The Masculine and the Feminine 
Dr. Diego Frigoli*

MATERIA PRIMA Rivista di Psicosomatica Ecobiopsicologica – Il Maschile - Numero IV - Dicembre 2011 - Anno I

In the current era of reflection on post-modern philosophy and the victory of "weak thinking", the soul is looking everywhere for certainties and myths that can nourish it. In the course of evolution man has sought and found the roots of the myth first in Nature (in the sky, water, fire, mountains, etc.), then in his creations (in the city, the works of art, the buildings, temples, etc.), and finally in those strong men exemplary for the success achieved in their projects, as well as in the beauty of the woman, in her quality of sweetness and intelligence, building an imaginary where the archetypal language  inevitably went mixing with the ordinary language, ending up by losing, in the daily experience of the single man and single woman, the ancient trace of the creative spark of the archetype.
In the condensation between what lies beyond the contingent - that is, the myth - and the sociological and psychological reality of human experience, in reducing the myth to the object that had originated it, the archetypal basis that reveals the depth of pursuit of vital experience risks being definitively lost. It is true that the soul transforms things and events into experience, however the object of the experience is not the sensory aspect but the image that springs from its depth which gives meaning and value to the whole range of experience. It should not be forgotten, in fact, that the Greek philosophers called the fundamental principles that underlie every experience archai, but in order to perceive the archai that animate all living beings, it is necessary that the penetrating gaze of the imagination becomes more and more transparent to bring to light everything that arises beyond the "literal" value of the word and signals, thanks to intuition, the aspects belonging to an order other than the ordinary one.
The two terms Masculine and Feminine for example, require a de-literalization to highlight the archetypal images, which are confused with the reality of our earthly existence; on the archetypal level they have no value because they exist only as polarities opposite to the soul, joined in the ecstatic embrace of the androgyne. Within each individual, both the masculine and the feminine forces are present as intellect and soul, brain and heart, and it is from their union that the "perfect" consciousness can be born, a consciousness capable of containing these opposites, making them harmonious in their union.
By forgetting this point of view, namely that the Masculine and the Feminine represent a pair of opposites of the same archetype, psychoanalysis and social anthropology, by taking possession of these aspects in unilateral or instinctual terms, have ended up leading to a separation from archetypal forces. This split has meant that the masculine / feminine polarity has been socially transformed both in terms of aggression / submission and in terms of a hierarchical priority of man dictated only by the power of force, with the consequence of a pathologization of the couple, and of the necessity of family and society as a whole. As for the implications of this loss of relationship with the archetypal dimension, the Masculine let emerge its trait dependent on the first figure that generated it, that is the mother, and the Feminine amplified in its importance as genitrix, thanks to the projections of the Masculine, ended up renewing the role of wife and woman, returning to depend in her individuality on the matriarchal ouroboros with an exaggerated emphasis on her influence on the child, or by contrasting this matriarchal dimension with an "Amazonian" psychology characterized by a negative Animus in which the relationship with man has become a relationship with a stranger.
In the first issue of the magazine Materia Prima, we explored the problems of female psychology with a broad synthetic view, starting from the aspects of psychosomatic pathology up to broadening the vision to the myth and the imaginary. The imaginary, presenting itself as a symbolic place in which many aspects of real life are condensed, can offer in the constant comparison with the archetypal dimension on which it depends, a way of salvation to too simplistic and literal solutions, which in the case of the Masculine, contemplate a direct invitation to return to its own wild world to be recovered with respect to a society which, on the contrary, proposes a model of identification increasingly distant from nature.
In truth, not forgetting that the analytical psychology has recognized the presence of an unconscious feminine side in man and an unconscious masculine side in women, in my opinion for the comprehension of all the problems concerning their relationship, it is necessary that the solution of the respective problems is compared with the archetypal model where the opposites are constantly interactive and complementary to each other. And that in view of the only possible solution determined by an increasing awareness of only transformation: the one in which the salt of the soul is increasingly united with the sulfur of the spirit, to generate the new human condition. The effort of ecobiopsychological epistemology is to combine in a vision that is both theoretical and practical, the stories and tales of human vicissitudes by comparing them with the epiphany of the myth intending to bring out those archetypal interludes capable of bringing out the most of pains in order to put them back into play as significant manifestations of an existential path of transformation.

*Dr. Diego Frigoli - Founder and promoter of the ecobiopsychological thought. Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist and Director of the ANEB Institute – School of Specialization in Psychotherapy. Innovator in the study of the imaginary focusing on the symbol in relation to its dynamics between the individual and the collective knowledge.

Translated by Dr.ssa Raffaella Restelli – Psychologist, member of the British Psychological Society (UK), Ecobiopsychological Counselor and expert in ANEB Psychosomatic Medicine. Linguist in ANEB Editorial area.