The self that remains: a symbolic analysis of the psychological death of the self in Alzheimer's disease

ABSTRACT

In Alzheimer's disease, we witness a psychological death of the self before physical death. The unraveling of the self that occurs in Alzheimer's disease is a classic underworld journey, through which the deceased undergo a dismantling of memory and temporal identity to become shades of the Underworld. Through stories of family members living with dementia in a loved one, Alzheimer's disease reveals a descent into an irrational, symbolic, and timeless otherworld. This unique dying process provides insight into a degeneration and death of self and identity that is always occurring in the undergrowth of individuation. Individuation, as explicated through Greek eschatology, has two aspects: a general, phylogenetic Homeric process, and an ontogenetic Orphic process characterized by intentional participation in one's own evolution of consciousness. Analyses of an archetypal death, a symbolic birth, and the self that remains as temporal identity is deconstructed through dementia conclude the article.

KEYWORDS:

• Alzheimer's
• self
• individuation
• underworld
• death
• Orphic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Kesstan Blandin is a research psychologist at the Center for the Applications of Psychological Type in Gainesville, Florida, where she conducts research in the MBTI, typology, and Jungian psychology. Her main research interests are in typological development, individuation, and authenticity. Before this, Dr. Blandin was a researcher and psychologist specializing in dementia at the Dartmouth Centers for Health & Aging, Dartmouth College, Lebanon, New Hampshire. Dr. Blandin's publications include peer-reviewed journal articles in both dementia grief and Jungian typology, and she is co-author (with Robert Santulli, MD) of The Emotional Journey of the Alzheimer's Family (Dartmouth College Press, 2015).

Notes

1. The term ‘self’ as used in this article is not referring to the archetype. Rather, the self as discussed here is referring to a temporal self, the idea of the whole that circumscribes and organizes all of the elements that comprise it: the ego certainly, including unconscious aspects, but also social identities and roles, neurobiological, cognitive, narrative, and embodied aspects as well. Where the self archetype is meant to be referenced, the word ‘archetype’ is added and self is not capitalized, as the author prefers Jung's use of ‘self' without a capital ‘S'.

2. All of the personal stories in this article derive from a qualitative interview study conducted by the author. The study received Institutional Review Board approval from the Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. Names have been changed for confidentiality.