The dog that is not a dog: a rejoinder to Stanton Marlan

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper is a rejoinder to Stanton Marlan’s article, ‘The absolute that is not absolute: an alchemical reflection on the caput mortuum, the dark other of logical light.’ It challenges mischaracterizations by Marlan of Giegerich’s contribution to analytical psychology, not on the usual level of debate and counter-argument, but through psychological ‘seeing-through’. Marlan’s assertion that Giegerich’s psychology as the discipline of interiority approach is ‘too pure [a psychology] to treat ordinary human beings in the consulting room’ is responded to by turning the tables and using Marlan’s account of having had to euthanize his dog as ordinary case material with which to demonstrate the merit and analytic acuity of Giegerich’s mode of interpretation.