Orpheus's Error and Gender Equality: Damage and Psychic Development Perspectives Emerging from the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The containment measures of the covid-19 pandemic have led to a series of different types of losses in young people, who, given the considerable persistence of these measures, could be damaged due to both perceived chronic stress and the lack of development possibilities, caused by the persistence of the aforementioned limitations. Psychoanalysis has proved capable of providing multiple levels of interpretation of both dreams and clinical material, as well as myths, which for this reason can also serve as an interpretative grid for many clinical situations. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, as descriptive of the loss of the object of love, therefore the most devastating and destructive of losses, can therefore prove useful in framing the clinical path to be faced in repairing the damage suffered and in resuming the lost opportunities of development, due to the restrictions imposed by the containment measures of the aforementioned pandemic.

Keywords

Covid-19 Pandemic, Loss of evolutionary potential, Myth of orpheus and Eurydice, Psychoanalysis, Gender equality

Introduction

Effects of the covid-19 pandemic on mental health

The disastrous covid-19 pandemic has caused a high number of sick and dead people, and has entailed, starting from the beginning of 2020, political choices aimed to contain the spread of the virus that have had heavy effects on the lifestyle of individuals and populations, with equally heavy repercussions on personal, social and economic integration levels, and therefore on the general state of health. The health crisis has caused enormous stress on hospital health services, due to the unexpected and critical increase in the demand for health care, and a heavy economic regression, due to the need to try to curb the spread of the infection through measures aimed to contain the circulation of the virus, i.e. drastic limitations of physical contacts between people. The measures implemented by the States, albeit with some differences, have been similar at a global level, and inevitably have produced heavy repercussions at both the socio-economic and health level: In addition to the dramatic repercussions of the covid-19 pandemic on the hospital systems of all the world, timely research has revealed an increase in anxiety, depression and perception of stress in the general population [1], as well as an increase in post-traumatic stress disorder, mainly widespread among women, people aged 40 or younger, unemployed people, people suffering from chronic psychiatric disorder, students, and finally people frequently exposed to information about the covid-19 pandemic disseminated by the mass media [2]. The increase in care work for women, and in the uncertainty of their working conditions and the related unpredictability of the possibility of continuing to support their families (for adults up to 40 years of age), and the destruction of lifestyles and the impoverishment of social relations (especially for the youngest), in addition to the fear of being infected and the efforts made to avoid it (for all the groups considered), can explain these results, which can lead to an aggravation of disability, for people already suffering from mental disorders, and to a general worsening of inequalities between people, since the richest ones have been able to better contain the heavy effects on the economy of the covid-19 pandemic, thus also limiting exposure to stress connected to them.

Chronic stress has heavy repercussions, both on the hippocampal formation and on the Prefrontal Cortex and on the Amygdala, leading to impaired memory, learning, and impairment on higher cognitive functions and regulation of emotionality [3]. However, these relapses could have a different meaning, if referring to adults or people of developmental age: In the first case, the recovery from the damage should result in the restoration of the levels of functioning and adaptation prior to the stressful period, subject to the changes made necessary from contingent situations and new learning; in the second case, recovery from damage should extend to the lack of development of skills that would otherwise have been possible in the absence of prolonged stress. Therefore, psychosocial and socio-economic limitations, on the one hand, and damage to cortical structures, albeit reversible, on the other, represent an explosive mixture whose effects could only be assessed through future studies, being the situation caused by the covid-19 pandemic a global catastrophe, which is unprecedented in history, although measures have been taken to contain the spread of the pandemic, as well as of psychosocial support provided to the population, both in high-income countries and in low - and middle-income countries [4].

Especially in high-income nations, the social changes connected to the increase in wealth, and to the progressive specialization required for access to the world of work, has led to the creation of a sort of social moratorium, inherent in the transition from adolescence to adulthood: It has been proposed that the age group between 18 and 25 years is called Emerging Adulthood , meaning a period in which young people are engaged in study activities, seeking more intimate and stable love relationships, residence outside the family nucleus, search for meaning for one's life, with a connected exploration of possible identities, and strategies of social integration connected both to the vision of the world thus consolidated, and to the social status achieved through studies, experiences, and established love relationships. Unlike in childhood and adolescence, specific biological markers underlying the developmental impulses do not correspond to this evolutionary phase, as it represents a cultural product present above all in the wealthiest societies, which can economically support this moratorium. The activity of exploration of the identity characteristic of this phase, also involves the risk of incurring alcohol and substance abuse, and moreover, being the result of cultural constructions, it does not necessarily have to take place during the aforementioned age group, as they are possible advances and postponements, depending on the circumstances that occur for the individual persons, as well as the resources that they may have to support it, which may also vary based on specific circumstances. Therefore, there may be people who enter the Emerging Adulthood phase before the age of 18, if circumstances force to adultize them prematurely, and others who enter later, for reasons deriving from own internal psychological problems and personal or economic insecurity. Similarly, this phase can end before the age of 25 or later, depending on whether or not a satisfactory and stable level of personal, social and economic integration has been achieved [5,6]. Having to abandon in order to move on to an evolutionary phase characterized by stability, constancy of relationships and one's own vision of the world, Emerging Adulthood must include a series of emotional and cognitive transformations that enable the definitive transition to adulthood. For this reason, the UNESCO has recognized the particular needs of this age group, giving priority to policies that support their participation in social life, at all levels [7]. There are therefore biological and psychosocial conditions that can support actions aimed at recovering the damage caused by the covid-19 pandemic on individuals and the youth population, although there are no consolidated experiences of intervention on similar situations.

Life cycles and gender differences

Different cataloging of life cycles, within which biological, psychological and social parameters converge, are present in different eras and cultures, such as the Classical and the Middle Ages, in Europe, and in different cultures and ethnicities, such as Hindu and Jewish: The nine phases recognized in the Classical Ages become six in the Middle Ages, while the Hindu culture has four stages, unlike the Jewish one, which recognizes fourteen. These catalogs, defined by behavioral characteristics built on psychological and social skills acquired over time, are socially recognized and accepted, therefore they represent frames of reference within which people can build their own identity narrative, with consequent social integration and acceptance of roles connected within it, or marginalization and risk of stigmatization, in case of deviation or refusal of the same [8].

Ancient Greek Culture provided various ways of scanning human life, the most detailed of which, proposed by Solon during the Archaic Era, recognized life cycles scanned in periods of seven years each, which were also acquired in the Classical Era, and later by Hippocrates, through whom they spread also in Roman culture. This scan was based on biological and psychosocial parameters, and was quite independent of the Roman legal scan, which was simpler, as it included the stage of infantes (7 years), impuberes (12 years) and puberes (14-25 years), unlike biological and psychosocial scans, which could be much more complex and articulated [9]. The archaic and classical subdivision, proposed by Solon and taken up by Hippocrates, provided for the following succession of stages: 1) 0-7 years, characterized by the emergence and loss of milk teeth; 2) 7-14 years, during which the first signs of puberty appear; 3) 14-21 years, during which the body is still growing, and shows a change in the color of the skin, with the appearance of hairs on the face; 4) 21-28 years, during which the body reaches its maximum strength; 5) 28-35 years, when the man is ripe for marriage and to have children; 6) 35-42 years, when a man's mind is well mature and unwilling to do nonsense; (7-8) 42-56 years, when man is at the peak of his ability to think and speak; 9) 56-63 years old, when man still has his abilities but his speech and his wisdom give weak proofs of excellence; 10) 63 years and over, meaning that there was no yet been death.

For women, the classification, apart from that relating to childhood, was developed, unlike for males, on the basis of the ability to access the status of wife or mother [10]. In fact, girls could get married once they reached sexual maturity (around 14 years, with the appearance of menarche), and fathers could make marriage vows without consulting them, usually with males more than twice their age [11]. Greek women were therefore considered to lack the ability to give consent, and there was no term in the ancient Greek language for rape, although the use of force and violence was punishable by law: The abduction of a girl was considered on a par with a theft, and in some respects it was similar to marriage because, like the latter, it did not require the consent of the girl, and also did not necessarily imply violent sexual contact, often ending with the marriage between the kidnapper and the kidnapped, agreed with the father or other family member having the role of legal guardian of the same [12]. The Myth of the kidnapping of Kore by Hades therefore represented the marriage paradigm, in Ancient Greece regulated by agrarian cultural paradigms, as Kore, daughter of the Goddess Demeter, who guards agriculture and the cult of wheat, was abducted in the Underworld without choosing it, as happens with the wheat seed, which sinks into the earth, disintegrates and reproduces, multiplying in the generated ear, without having chosen to do it [13].

In all cases, marriage was considered a tool to guarantee the continuity of the paternal lineage, which was obliged to provide a dowry to the daughters, which could not manage it independently: The husbands acquired the right to manage this dowry in the interest of their own family unit, and were obliged to return it to the bride's father in the event of divorce, which often occurred when no children were born. In such cases, the couple's male could have concubine children, and could also legitimize them, making them his legitimate heirs. The promise of marriage, however, included the quantification of the dowry to be assigned to the bride, while the fathers of low lineage could have recourse to assistants, in the search for a husband for their daughter [14]. This situation was generalized for the whole Greek/Roman culture: the marriage of antiquity was a fundamental event for various social classes, however the legal marriage was reserved for both Roman and Greek City/State citizens. Therefore, a hard struggle was needed to acquire the right to a legal marriage, for some less privileged strata of society, that is the only way to legitimize one's children. Conversely, giving birth to legitimate children was considered an essential duty for women, and marriage was an opportunity for exchanges of sometimes copious gifts between families, so it had to be regulated according to written contracts. For people of low social status there was, therefore, no single ceremony that could make marriage official [15]. Although legal marriage was in most cases a male-ruled affair, according to the description provided by Mason (2006), was preceded by a complex ritual that interested females, which through it they accessed the status of procreators, of fundamental importance for the community. The role of procreation, however, was aimed above all at ensuring male heirs, to the point that females were obliged to marry a relative of their father, if the latter had not had male children, even if already married. The modality of access to this status was considered of little relevance, to the point that the Greek language used the same term, gamos , to indicate both marriages and kidnappings, and the verbal form gamein to indicate both the sexual act and that of get married, by her husband. On the contrary, the same language used three terms, to indicate the female mature for procreation: parthenos (female who had the first menarche, and dangerous due to her reproductive capacity not controlled by a male); nynphe (female mature for procreation in transition to marriage) and gyne (married female, mother, incardinated in her husband's house). Before getting married, the Greek girls sacrificed their toys and clothing to Artemis, Hera and Aphrodite, protective goddesses respectively of childbirth, family life and seduction, then took a purifying bath: marriage therefore represented a symbolic death, for them . Although, however, marriage in ancient Greece may have been assimilated to rapture and by it symbolized during rituals, it did not exclude unions born of love, especially among the lower classes, in which the gender divide in daily life was less marked. Nor did it rule out that love was an ideal to be pursued, after having constituted the couple, despite the verb used to indicate the relationship of the bride with the groom, damazein, meant both to be subject to a husband and to tame an animal .

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a metaphor for an interrupted development trajectory

Son of Apollo, the Olympian god of prophecy and oracles, of music, song and poetry [16], and of Calliope, the eldest of the Muses, goddesses of music, song and dance [17], Orpheus was a musician with extraordinary abilities, who for this reason was part of the adventure of the Argonauts, although he was not physically strong: according to the myth, the oaks used to build the Argonauts ship followed him, enchanted by the his music, which also served to protect the crew from the song of the Sirens [18] The name Orpheus is commonly traced back to orphao (deprived, orphan, greedy) and orphe (darkness) , that is deprived person, longing for dark things [19] and his figure was inspiring poets, philosophers and priests, whose beliefs and arguments referred to the role and function of the Underworld in regulating the conduct of living people [20, 21], and for this reason they called themselves Orphics .

The myth narrating the experience of orpheus in the underworld, tells that orpheus and euridice, a naiad nymph, protector of springs and streams [22] married for love, but euridice died, and orpheus went to the underworld to bring her back to life. The known versions come from virgil [23] and ovid [24,25], Latin poets of the 1st century BC, which represent, however, reworkings of older versions: in fact, this myth was known to Socrates [26], a philosopher who lived in the fourth century B.C.

The Roman marriage rite, to which the two aforementioned poets refer, was not so different from the Greek one, apart from the role of the haruspices in drawing auspices from the bowels of the animal that was specially sacrificed (the rite continued only if the auspices were favorable): The bride gave her toys to a deity the day before the wedding, thus symbolizing the symbolic death of her identity as anynphe , she wore elegant clothes and a veil, which covered a special hairstyle and a crown of plants; the spouses shared a spelled focaccia with her husband and signed the wedding contract. Then followed a banquet and a procession similar to the Greek one. The groom simulated to kidnap the bride, in memory of the Rape of the Sabines perpetuated by Romulus after the foundation of Rome; female work tools were transported inside the marital home and were also invoked protective deities of marriage (Jupiter and Juno, for the protection of marital relationship, Venus for the protection of love, Diana for the protection of births, and Fides, as the personification of the virtues required of the wife); the following day the bride wore the matron's own clothes and prepared a banquet reserved for the relatives of the spouses [27].

Both virgil's and ovid's versions do not mention pre-marital agreements: being orpheus son of the god Apollo, and Eurydice a minor goddess who protected the springs and streams, it was in fact rather improbable, however the events triggering the descent in the underworld by Orpheus narrated in the myth were not reserved, by no means, for supernatural beings, just as was not the possibility of marrying for love, which, compared to the dominant conventions, represented a deviation, therefore also a possible "exploration of identity "proper to the emerging adulthood. Indeed, referring to the aforementioned classification of solon, Orpheus was of marriageable age, so he could have been 28-35 years-old or even younger, but he was unable to access the following, more mature stages of mental development, because he died shortly after Eurydice, who died on her wedding day. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice therefore lends itself to representing the metaphor of an interrupted development trajectory .

Method. Myths and myth analysis

Myths are forged on stories told for centuries in very large areas of the planet, even using different languages, such as Greek and Latin, and poetry, sculpture and painting. They also come to us through various fragments and different versions, often dating back to different periods or geographical areas, which nevertheless maintain strong similarities and coherence, therefore assembling fragments and versions can help to obtain a more complete overview of the myth, and sometimes also to obtain a complete story, putting together more fragments and sections of the story [28]. Their exceptional capacity for permanence in time and diffusion in space, together with their tendency to be integrated by variations created in different eras and places, indicate a strong adaptive value of myth for human communities. Psychoanalysis has interpreted myths according to different models, using the interpretative techniques developed for the analysis of dreams and other phenomena of clinical interest, [29-33] which however, are unable to fully examine their adaptive potentialities: in fact, already S. Freud (1899/1973, p. 251) specified that, in the analysis of poetic creations, so as with dreams and neurotic symptoms, over-interpretation is necessary, as they result from multiple condensed motives and impulses. However, unlike dreams and clinical phenomena observed in the treatment of psychopathologies, myths are presented in the form of narratives, that is, products resulting from highly asymmetric secondary-level of mental processes, albeit resulting from mythopoeic activity, who is a generator of metaphors and images capable to also arouse deep symmetrical identifications between listeners/readers and the protagonists of the myth, as well as different interpretations. The asymmetry provided by the narrative structure can therefore have an interpretative value like the metaphors and images used, as it is potentially indicative of a path of psychic transformation that affects the characters of the myth, during their vicissitudes [34].

According to Barthes [35], although the sentence can be described at different levels (phonetic, phonological, grammatical, contextual) which are in a hierarchical relationship between them, while maintaining their internal correlations that allow their autonomous description, none of these levels is able to provide a meaning independently of the others: a phoneme does not mean anything, unless it is articulated within a word, and this takes on its full value when it is integrated in a sentence. Similarly, the narrative consists of a hierarchy of levels that are constituted, in the production and in the fruition, both through the horizontal succession of words and phrases, and through the vertical passage from one level to another. The narrative can be analyzed at the level of Functions, Actions, and Speech. A Function reveals its meaning only when it is integrated within a general line of Action of an actor, and this Action receives its meaning as it is placed within a Discourse that is produced through a specific Code. The Function represents a unit of content of the Narration, made up of Functional Units, in turn made up of larger units (Groups of Sentences of various length), or smaller than the Sentence (Syntagms and Words), which can correlate with others same level, or assume their meaning only by integrating at a higher level. Functional Units can be Distributional and Integrative.

The former refer to actions that open, maintain or close an alternative trend in history, activating or resolving an uncertainty. They are Cardinals (or Nucleuses) within the narrated story, and are both consecutive (following one another) and consequential (the existence of one unit makes it possible for another to come true), although the logical order of the narrative need not necessarily coincide with the chronology through which the narrative is exposed, and they are both necessary for the narrative and sufficient for themselves. They can be identified only through their implications: They open when a term lacks an antecedent of the same type, and they close when another of its terms implies no further consequence; moreover, they are always logically incomplete, although they can be named and self-sufficient, as they take on their meaning within a broader context, assuming the role of a simple term for another broader sequence. The latter are integrative to the former, and include indices or descriptive indicators of personality traits, feelings, atmosphere, philosophy, which help to decipher the contexts and situations narrated. They are catalytic (Catalysis), that is, they enter into a relationship with the Nucleuses in a parasitic and chronological way, since they describe what separates two moments of the narration, weaving an expansive relationship with the Nucleuses, in order to maintain contact between the narrator and the user. In summary, it is not possible to cancel a Nucleus of a Narration without altering it, and it is not possible to cancel a Catalysis without altering the Discourse of the Narration.

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, as a narrative, can therefore be broken down into Nucleuses, as well as Catalysis associated with them, and interpreted according to the principles that regulate the functioning of the Unconscious System, proposed by I. Matte Blanco [36]: Regulated from the Principle of Symmetry, “[...] the Unconscious System treats the inverse relationship of any relationship as if it were identical to the relationship. In other words, it treats asymmetrical relations as if they were symmetrical”; while, regulated by the Principle of Generalization:

[…] The unconscious system treats an individual thing (person, object, concept) as if it were a member or element of a whole or a class that contains other members; treats this class as a subclass of a more general class and this more general class as a subclass or subset of an even more general class and so on (to infinity). [...] In the choice of class and ever wider classes, the unconscious system prefers those propositional functions which in one aspect express a growing generality and in others retain some particular characteristics of the individual thing from which they started [36].

The interpretations of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

Nucleus 1: Marriage

Orpheus and the nynphe Euridice get married for love, that is, outside the conventional contract between the bride's father and the groom, which did not provide for the bride's consent. Eurydice's father is therefore absent, as is the Orpheus's one, so the marriage is transgressive also from the point of view of the aggregative contract between families. The term nynphe represents both a nymph, or a minor divinity, and a girl of childbearing age, traveling for marriage: Orpheus marries the nynphe Euridice, thus means that Orpheus marries a girl named Euridice (Generalization), and that the girl Eurydice marries a man named Orpheus (Symmetry). That is to say that this (mythical) marriage can be generalized to any marriage celebrated outside the conventional codes, and that any couple created in this way can identify with it . In fact, the myth does not refer to the age of orpheus, who could therefore also have been younger than that conventionally recognized as optimal for a man's marriage, that is 28 - 35 years.

Ovid narrates that Hymenaeus, god of marriages involving virgin girls and of fertile age, participates in the celebration of this union but does not draw good wishes from it, therefore, according to Roman custom, marriage should not have been celebrated, however it is celebrated anyway, and eurydice dies, bitten by a snake. Valenti FJ [37], interprets Ovid's version of the myth using the Freudian paradigm, and interprets as ambivalent both the color of sunlight that envelops the presence of Hymenaeus (of dawn, symbol of the arrival of day, and of sunset, symbol of the arrival of the night), that the snake, which kills with its poison, and renews its life by changing its skin, also attributing this symbolism to the snake shape of the puffs of smoke emanating from the torch of Hymenaeus. Consistently, ambivalence is therefore also present in object relations, and therefore Eurydice represents the oldest object of desire, namely the mother, whom Orpheus then married. Since Eurydice died from a snake bite, following the consummation of the marital sexual intercourse, Orpheus unconsciously represents the death of Eurydice/mother as a punishment for the fulfillment of his incestuous desire, which was acted towards a virgin mother, being Eurydice a nynphe. The fantasy of the mother/virgin, again in the perspective proposed, is defensive, with respect to the threat of castration resulting from the discovery of sexual differences between males and females, and to the infantile theory derived from it, namely that females do not have a penis because it have been removed. The disavowal of sexual differences allows to deny the implementation of sexual relations between parents, therefore it defends from the anxiety and anguish arising from the overcoming of the Oedipus complex, as the mother/virgin does not have sexual relations, and therefore also paternity is disowned.

Virgil narrates that Eurydice is bitten by the snake while trying to escape from the rape attempt carried out by Aristeo, a bee breeder. In the Sicilian or Italian tradition, Aristeo is a giant [38]. The motif of the giant chasing the nymphs is also represented by the hunter Orion, a giant chasing the Pleiades nymphs [39]: That is to say that this motif symbolizes, by generalization, the condition of nymphs/girls of fertile age, when they are the object of desire, not reciprocated, by gigantic men, or by males much larger than themselves, as happened in the Greek/Roman culture of arranged marriages. The mortal bite of the snake, in the Virgilian version, therefore inserts a narrative catalysis in the Nucleus that places the ambivalence of the snake bite in a cultural context opposed to the free choice of the object of desire by girls, connoting it in a rather different way, compared to what Valenti does, who does not take this Virgilian variant into consideration, hence the point of view of Eurydice, regarding the free choice of the object of love.

Nucleus 2. The descent (katabasis) into the Underworld

Moreover, continues Valenti [37], since the sexual relationship between Orpheus and Eurydice was consummated despite the bad omens detected by Hymenaeus, the death of Eurydice assumes the magical value that characterizes the regressions to Primary Narcissism, which is characterized by disinterest towards things and people, megalomania and omnipotence of thought, which Orpheus expresses with his ability to make even stones and trees to move, at the rhythm of his music, which allows him, for this quality, also to descend into the underworld, although he is alive.

The belief in the existence of this kingdom, for Valenti, reinforces Orpheus' defensive disavowal, which leads him to believe that Eurydice's death did not actually take place. The Underworld, always according to Valenti, as a place of containment and residence of the dead Eurydice, moreover represents both the Unconscious and the uterus, as it was believed that its access was located in the Tenarus, a peninsula surrounded by water: being in the uterus is therefore equivalent to living in an undifferentiated state, and being in the Underworld is equivalent to being devoid of any desire, therefore the condition for accessing it is that of self-castration. The latter condition strengthens the ambivalent feelings towards the mother, who arouses both desire and fears of castration both on the part of the father and on the part of the mother's vagina, already invested with ambivalent feelings related to the loss of the breast following weaning.

Seen from a different perspective from that proposed by Valenti, according to Zatkalik M [40], however, in musical language (and in the Unconscious, in general) sensory experiences are transformed, with condensed or fragmented perceptions of an object, dissociated from it and associated with another, giving rise to contradictory and simultaneous, bizarre and unusual representations. In musical language, on the other hand, the fragmented themes are condensed, the condensed ones are fragmented and developed, the harmonic ambiguities clarified, to the point that even in the violated expectations there is the hope (and the certainty) that in the end they will be satisfied: The language musical, unlike the oneiric one, is therefore structured in such a way as to anticipate future events, perceived as desirable, although unexpected and surprising, while using the mental processes that characterize the dream language. It therefore gives an intelligible form to the language of the unconscious and, to the extent that the latter is comparable to the underworld, allows it to be crossed unscathed: It therefore represents the hope of overcoming a condition perceived as unpleasant and harmful, which, in fact, that of the underworld. Therefore, according to this perspective, music represents an instrument capable of giving shape to the undifferentiated, rather than an expression of the omnipotence of primary narcissism: in fact, Valenti, confusing the analysis of the myth with that of people, attributes to Orpheus a grandiose description of the effects of his music which instead is made by the myth, which enhances the effects of music to induce movement and arouse emotions in people, generalizing them to animals, plants and stones.

Nucleus 3: Orpheus' supplication

Master Basho said to the monks: If you have a stick, I will give you one. If you don't have it, I'll take it off [41].

The version of the myth provided by Ovid narrates that Orpheus, having reached the depths of the Underworld, begs Hades and Persephone, the divinities of that place, to re-weave the prematurely shattered destiny of Eurydice, relying on the amorous passion which, in the Italic version inherent in the marriage between the two [14], pushed Kore/Persephone to descend into the underworld to join hades (the Greek version, otherwise, narrates that Kore was kidnapped by hades, by agreement with her brother Zeus, father of Kore), while acknowledging that each living being is destined to die, and that the death of each is determined by fate. Orpheus therefore tries to arouse the identification between Kore/Persephone and himself, as both descended into the underworld for love. In addition, he is also aware that he can give his death for him, and not by chance: in fact, he claims that, if he had not been granted the requested grace, he too would have remained in the underworld, that is, he would have died. Orpheus, therefore, tries to negotiate both with death, whose inevitability and fatality he recognizes, and with his feelings for Eurydice, as he is undecided between dying like Eurydice and living without her: Orpheus did not therefore incorporate the definitive absence of Eurydice, due to her death, remaining tied to her. The catalysis introduced by Ovid therefore denotes Orpheus' inability to live without Eurydice.

Nucleus 4: Orpheus' mistake

The man who walks alone has no direction in which to turn to [42].

Both Ovid and Virgil report that the gods of the underworld consent to Orpheus bringing back Eurydice, on condition that she follows him, and that he does not turn around, until he has returned to the surface. Arriving near the light, Orpheus turns around, and loses Eurydice forever, and is no longer allowed to go down to the underworld. Virgil reports that Eurydice, while looking for a reason for the loss of both of them, accepts her situation and her impotence; while Ovid recounts that Eurydice vanished without complaining, unable to complain about having been loved.

Valenti [37] believes that, disobeying the prohibition on looking back, representative of the paternal law, Orpheus regresses, fixing himself on the maternal figure, with whom he identifies, thus developing love for children and melancholy, as, lost for the second time the mother/Eurydice, remains identified with a lost object, therefore in a melancholy condition, which also represents the sadism of the superego towards the ego, resulting from ambivalence.

According to Nucara [43], turning back represents nostalgia for a past condition, in Orpheus' case of the love affair with his mother, which is generally opposed by the paternal, anti-nostalgic function, which urges the child to look forward, that is to project into the future by imagining new scenarios, new perspectives, new relationships. The failure of Orpheus, therefore, involves remaining tied to his mother, identifying with her; a condition that, associated with the lack of an effective paternal relationship (such as the one that characterized Orpheus' relationship with his father, Apollo, who was scarcely interested in his children), is often underlying the homosexuality reported in many clinical cases present in the literature.

From a Jungian point of view, according to Zabriskie [44] the dead cannot project themselves towards the future (i.e. going back to the light of Orpheus), maintaining a continuity with the past (i.e. the turning back of Orpheus), therefore Orpheus, descending in the underworld and having made contact with the world of death, works, as an artist, a transgression, which allows him to draw from the formless world of death the resources necessary to create new forms.

According to the Bionian perspective [45], in conditions of linear temporality, events are more or less predictable, and allow the person to manage his own life and orient it towards an imagined future, while in the condition of absent temporality, that characterizes the unconscious and dreams, there is no before and after , events are unpredictable and therefore no future can be imagined and managed. However, dreams are part of every person's life, and are made possible by a psychic function, the Alpha Function described by Bion, which allows you to use emotional experiences to think, in such a way as to allow the person to dream even when awake. Orpheus, therefore, turns to look at Eurydice because he is unable to dream her, an attitude instead necessary in a dimension in which linear temporality is absent, such as the unconscious, or the kingdom of the underworld.

From a cognitive point of view, Orpheus remains tied to his knowledge already possessed (according to which people make noise when they walk), then turns around, being unable to contain the experience of being in a way inhabited by shadows, and to give space to a knowledge that, for him, remains inaccessible. Orpheus, therefore, remains tied to a knowledge limited to what is perceived through the senses, and cannot access a form of knowledge that is independent of them [13]: seeing in the absence of visual stimuli, listening in the absence of auditory stimuli, tasting in the absence of taste or odoriferous stimuli, touching in the absence of tactile stimuli. Orpheus then turns back to obtain sensory confirmation of an immaterial presence, that of Eurydice’s shadow. That is to say that he cannot access the mental operations that make possible philosophical speculations, mathematical analyzes, scientific inferences, etc.: that is, skills that are acquired, in general, starting from adolescence .

According to an evolutionary perspective, in his journey towards the conquest of adult identity, the adolescent must go through a condition that contains the need both to separate himself from parental objects, with which he has internalized relationships that place him in a childlike position, and to remain tied to them: Being still immature, he does not have the autonomy necessary to live independently from them, although he struggles to conquer it. He then alternates distancing and conflict, with rapprochement and reconciliation [46]: he looks forward and backward, unlike the infant, who can only look above , being completely dependent on primary objects, which, for this reason [47] are for him, good by definition. Therefore, Orpheus is unable to overcome the adolescent phase, that is, he turns around because he cannot tolerate the absence of Eurydice, as she is important for his definition of himself: He loses her forever because he cannot return alone from Hades, leaving behind his identity as a teenager, similar to what a nynphe does when she becomes a gyne. Not having incorporated her absence due to her death, Orpheus still depends on the presence of Eurydice to regulate himself in the world, once back to the surface, not having developed the ability to regulate in his absence. Orpheus turns back because he hasn't gotten over his mourning . According to another point of view, Orpheus turns to look in Eurydice, for the self object or the external regulator of self-esteem and ideals necessary for the good autonomy of the person, when the same still has deficiencies in the formation of his personality [48]. According to a further perspective, Orpheus turns away because he is unable to pursue his Ideal of Ego, being his personality structure still immature.

Nucleus 5: The mourning of Orpheus

Virgil recounts that Orpheus fasted for seven months, returning from the underworld, while, for Ovid, he did it for seven days. Both argue that Orpheus refused any relationship with other women, even though it was desired by them, singing incessantly about the lost Eurydice. It was, therefore, a traumatic mourning. Ovid adds that the men of Thrace drew from it a pretext to justify their homosexual loves towards adolescents, without however making any reference to any homosexual tendencies of Orpheus, although they cannot be excluded, according to the psychodynamic interpretations set out above, proposed by Valenti and Nucara.

In Medicine, trauma means: injury produced in the body by any agent capable of sudden, rapid and violent action (Treccani Dictionary). In Psychology, it is not possible to accurately translate this definition: Faced with the same events, not all people perceive them in a traumatic way [49], while a dagger wounds people's bodies in the same way. It is therefore necessary that the processing of the experience required by these events exceeds the processing capacity of the person who remains traumatized: trauma is a relationship between the event and the person, which involves damage to the person . Without damage, only experience remains, good or bad.

The models mainly used in literature to interpret the elaboration of mourning, and possibly treat its pathological aspects, are those with a psychoanalytic orientation, which interpret the work of mourning as a way of redefining the relationship with the lost object, and those relating to the attachment bonds theory, which sees this work as a process of destruction and subsequent reconstruction of the operating models of oneself and of the world built on the basis of passed recurrent patterns of relationship with the lost object. Both psychoanalytic models and those inspired by the bonds of attachment, have associated the work of mourning with that done by the infant during the archaic phases of psychic development [50]. According to these models, the work of mourning is analogous to the process of development of the ego, ideal of the ego and superego (S. Freud), internal world (M. Klein), thought (WR Bion), language (J. Kristeva), regulatory representations of self-esteem and ideals (H. Kohut), models of the Self and of the World (J. Bowlby), that is, a psychic work aimed at bridging the internal absence of psychic structures, processes or representations, which manifests itself as such due to the loss of different forms of relationship with the objects that performed the functions that are revealed to be missing after the loss, whose external absence ends up being balanced by the construction of an internal presence , which replaces the external absence. Similarly, the mourning process reproduces the same dynamics, with the substantial difference that the external absence of the object is effective and definitive, rather than illusory or temporary [51], therefore it requires an autonomy and separation most radical and definitive from the lost object.

Nucleus 6: The dismemberment of Orpheus

Both Virgil and Ovid tell that Orpheus 'mourning ended with his dismemberment and beheading by the maenads, and that Orpheus' head was carried by a river and continued to sing of Eurydice. Eventually, the head of Orpheus is recovered, on the island of Lesbos, and becomes an oracle (Fanocles, 3rd century BC), located in a cavity in the earth [52].

According to a perspective proposed by Ferenczi, both Orpheus and Eurydice have undergone a separation and an effective and definitive loss, rather than an illusory and temporary one, therefore they show an aptitude for despair, helplessness and an affectivity, typical of mourning, however within a psychic configuration that allows the development of intellectual operations, decidedly detached from affectivity, which remains inaccessible due to the fragmentation resulting from the trauma: In the myth, this condition is represented partly by the world of the Underworld, where affections are not possible, and partly by the dismemberment of Orpheus and his head continuing to sing, and then becoming an oracle, that is an entity that guides and directs those who ask for advice [53], elaborating their own indications from the depths of the underworld, or the cavity of the earth/uterus in which it is located: It is therefore possible to affirm, generalizing, that those who make the journey to the Underworld can acquire the ability to orient and guide those who are unable to do so independently. Or they can be a psychotherapist.

According to Valenti [13], Orpheus' melancholy mourning ends with his beheading, or with the castration, by the maenads, that are openly sexed women. For Valenti, however, this beheading is equivalent to suicide, which allows him to interact with eurydice because she cannot further regress, having reached the last stage of regression, that is, reunification with the maternal object.

The Maenads, however, were women worshipers of the cult of Dionysus, god of intoxication, madness, wild frenzy, sensual pleasure and drunkenness, vegetation and wild beasts, as well as rebirth [54]. Maenadism, in a cultural context in which female sexuality was functional only to the gestation of the children of males, therefore represents the female sexual liberation and rebellion against repression, hence the free expression of this sexuality. The dismemberment of Orpheus therefore represents the yielding of his personality in response to the sexual request posed by the Maenad, or his inability to process the current experience, which is therefore experienced as traumatic in relation to the regulatory and aggregator function of Eurydice/mother, proved inadequate to elaborate the experience in progress: In fact, in the Lacanian perspective [55], between 6 and 18 months, the child, while experiencing a fragmented perception of himself, receives from external objects (the mother and other significant persons, in particular) an unitary reflected self-images, with which he identifies himself. In this way, through the aggregating function of the fragmented parts of himself originating from the reflected image transmitted by the significant objects, he obtains a unitary self-image, which however is alienating, since it is confused with fragmentary self-perceptions, and also rival with the latter, because discordant to them. In this way, the identity of the person is constructed and guaranteed by others (Eurydice, or any significant person), in a conflictual manner. After the acquisition of language [56], both the Subject and the object cannot be defined independently of the linguistic oppositions that build the chain of signifiers. Therefore, from this point of view, Orpheus cannot tolerate the loss of Eurydice because she, as a significant object/subject, defines his identity as a lover, in which Orpheus recognizes himself: In addition to being an object of love, Eurydice is a signifier subject, therefore represents, by generalization, every possible object/subject of desire of Orpheus, and Orpheus every person who is unable to accept a loss, of whatever kind it is, as an object/subject that signifies himself. Orpheus turns to look for Eurydice's gaze because he seeks, through it, the confirmation of his identity, which he perceives as vacillating, following the experience of the descent into the underworld. The Orpheuses are therefore characterized by a certain compromised capacity for self-definition and self-regulation. Each person can therefore become an Orpheus, faced with traumatic losses .

To the extent that the lost object is also an ego signifier, the death of the object entails the loss of meaning of the ego, hence its symbolic death: Orpheus does not overcome mourning because, unlike Eurydice, he does not die . After such a loss, in fact, nothing can be as before, and yet Orpheus continues to sing about Eurydice, continuing to desire her: he cannot live in the absence of a sign-object/subject-signifier, which means him. With death, however, Orpheus himself becomes an absence, so the song of Orpheus’ head, after his dismemberment by the Maenads, assigns to the music the status of an entity independent of the efficiency of the senses of those who create it : Music, in fact, can also be heard in absence of sensory stimulation, as happens for the dream perceptions, which are perceived as real, although they are not. Music (and creativity, in general) is generated within the psychic space created by the absence of the ego .

Quite singularly, from a philosophical-religious point of view, in a similar way Socrates argued, in his symposium , that the gods questioned by Orpheus did not appreciate his stratagem to access the underworld without dying, so they only gave him an image of Eurydice, who disappeared in the light, unlike what they did for Alcestis, who gave her life to save that of her husband, and who was able to return from the Underworld thanks to the help of Hercules, moved by her gesture.

Nucleus 7: The reunion between Orpheus and Eurydice

According to Ovid, the head and lyre of Orpheus reached the coast of the island of Lesbos, where a ferocious snake tried to devour Orpheus' head, but apollo, father of Orpheus, petrified the animal as it was, that is, with its jaws open wide, while Dionysus transformed the maenads into trees, saddened by the loss of the singer of his mysteries : Apollo, therefore, stopped the flow of time by petrifying the snake, while Dionysus deified the maenads, by elevating them to immobile and lasting witnesses of Orpheus’s enterprise. In this way, the enterprise of Orpheus was also deified, as a symbol of the integration of the apollonian with the Dionysian, as well as inspiring the social innovations emerging from the method of katabasis in Hades , practiced by the so-called Orphics .

Still according to Ovid, having returned, being dead, to the underworld, Orpheus recognizes the places, that is, he symmetrically recognizes his death , and finds Eurydice again, with whom he walks, preceding or following her, and turning to look at her: from asymmetrical that it was, based both on the prohibition on " turning back " placed on Orpheus, and on the role conventionally assigned to women in marital relations, the relationship between Orpheus and Eurydice becomes equally symmetrical. Being dead, Orpheus can recognize Eurydice , dead like any nynphe who was getting married.

Gender equality, in the myth of Orpheus, starts in love relationships born outside the conventions and codified rules, and is reached with the death of both genders. Making contact with death, descending into the afterlife, regressing in the uterus, therefore, can allow the development of cultural changes and the personal ability to process events, otherwise deficient, if they are perceived as traumatic .

Epilogue

The cultural changes suggested by this myth can be referred to those necessary to face a marriage outside the economic guarantees, such as the availability of a marriage dowry, and psychosocial ones, such as being part of an alliance between two already established families, as a condition and product of marriage. Other suggested cultural changes concern the limits/prohibitions inherent in the free choice of the object of love, which should have been implemented by those who wanted to marry outside the marriage contracts between parents and for love, rather than for convenience (section 5.1). The changes in the personal capacity to process events suggested by the same myth, on the other hand, concern the ability to confront, for a male, with the female sexual demand coming from such a marriage (section 5.6), such as that, precisely, between Orpheus and Eurydice. Finally, the remaining nucleuses analyzed indicate the steps that a male would have to take to achieve these results, according to the proposed analytical perspective.

It is regrettable that there is not, or is not known, a myth that describes a process of similar psychic transformation, from the female point of view: the cultural changes inherent in economic autonomy that have occurred for males, and to a lesser extent for females, which have now occurred in developed societies, they indicate greater freedom of choice of the object of love, for both sexes, but this does not mean that gender equality has been achieved, as regards both sexuality (section 5.6), relations between males and females (section 5.7), and the relative families of origin.

Conclusions

The above synthesis of the multiple interpretations of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice supports the ability of psychoanalysis to access different layers of meaning, underlying both the dreams and inner experiences lived by people, and the myths themselves. The myth above analyzed, basically deals with the loss of the object of love, that is the most devastating and heartbreaking loss, which, as such, can represent, by generalization, any loss of strongly desired object. In a context, such as that of the covid-19 pandemic, characterized by numerous and having different levels of severity and complexity types of loss, in relation to both the types and the value assumed by them in the psychic economy of individuals, the myth analyzed can provide an interesting interpretative grid, which can also act as a guide, in the therapeutic paths that may concern, in particular, young people, who may have experienced various types of loss, due to the measures implemented to contain the spread of infections: Loss of romantic, sexual and friendships relations; loss of external regulation to learning processes, due to both the presence of teachers and belonging to the class-group; loss of recreational activities; loss of routine activities, that is, markers of time scans and regulation of daily activities. The various interpretative paradigms, however, show differences, with regard to the possible directions that these paths could take, synthetically attributable to merely constatative paths, aimed at gaining an account of what happened, and paths aimed at overcoming the psychic conditions they have made the events traumatic . For example, Valenti (2016), as regards the first paradigm, seems to give little importance to the conclusion of the myth, as he considers it a variation developed by Ovid, believing that Orpheus, having died, once arrived for the second time in the underworld, he does not turn to look at Eurydice (instead, according to Ovid, he does: See Ovid. Metamorphosis, book XI) because he cannot regress further, having reached the final stage of regression and the definitive reunification with his dead mother. That is to say that Valenti operates a confusion between levels: Underworld represents an imaginary dimension, according to the point of view of those who venture into it, or a symbolic dimension, for those who want to narrate it, and obviously it cannot be a real dimension, until the opposite is proved, that is, that the underworld exists for really. Therefore, the changes that occurred in those who had faced a descent into the underworld should be ascribed to his imaginary, while the changes that took place in the underworld, and narrated in the form of a myth, should be interpreted as symbolic. Therefore, the mysteries for which Dionysus grieves, and the changes in the way of relating between Orpheus and Eurydice should also be read in a symbolic key, according to Ovid’s conclusion: Orpheus recognizes the places of the underworld, of which he evidently retains memory, unlike the dead, who cannot do it. The return to the Underworld of Orpheus is therefore symbolic . As regards to the second paradigm, based on the recognition and distinction between the imaginary, symbolic and real level, it does not allow to establish in a predetermined form a referenced horizon, or a pre-defined point of arrival, being able instead to lead to unexpected evolutionary perspectives, and also highly creative and innovative: In fact, the scanning of the myth into Nucleus and Catalysis, also allows us to identify a possible transformative path underlying the difference between starting conditions and final results, which characterizes the protagonists of the same, which however can be characterized differently, depending on the interpretative paradigm used and the established transformative objectives, which may vary according to the resources, expectations and aspirations of the individuals concerned. That is to say that the interpretative methodologies should not either be confused, because would give different results, if they are referred to anthropological research or clinical interventions: in the first case, the interpretative indices of the analyzed symbology must be sought in the historical and cultural contexts of reference (of the myth, in this case), while in the second they must be sought in the context of life and in the experiences of the individual patients treated. In the current historical situation, however, patients, regardless of their position in specific developmental stages, share the restrictions imposed by the containment measures of the covid-19 pandemic, and in this context, recurrent reaction patterns can therefore be identified, which can be useful in clinical interventions.

In this regard, a longitudinal research, which evaluated young people in emerging adulthood before and during the covid-19 pandemic, found higher levels of cognitive failure, rumination and intrusive thoughts during the lockdown, compared to the previous period, which were however negatively correlated with the levels of mindfulness, that is a psychic attitude characterized by: 1) The ability to identify and describe in words the thoughts and experiences experienced; 2) Tendency to be aware and recognize one's thoughts and feelings; 3) The ability to be aware and present to oneself, while ignoring and excluding possible distractions; 4) Tendency to objectively consider one's own feelings and thoughts, without judging them; 5) Tendency to remain calm and objective in dealing with feelings and thoughts that usually arouse emotional responses. Furthermore, although the levels of intrusive thoughts, rumination and cognitive failures increased for everyone, during the lockdown, for the group showing an increase in mindfulness scores, this did not happen for intrusive thoughts, while cognitive failures and rumination remained stable, or decreased [57], confirming mindfulness as a psychic attitude able to prevent containing stressful and traumatic experiences.

The psychic processing of losses, as it is based on the examination of the internal implications deriving from the loss of external objects, as well as on the re-elaboration of one's own internal resources in a way that is useful for overcoming traumatic and non-recoverable losses, can in fact be realized only starting from a condition of mindfulness, as previously described, or an attitude that makes it possible to observe and elaborate internal psychic processes, therefore this condition could represent an intermediate goal, to be reached prior to the actual re-elaboration of the losses and internal resources necessary to overcome them. Conversely, Orpheus' error can represent both a condition underlying the denial of real events, as in the case of the widespread denial of the existence of the covid-19 pandemic and the need to be vaccinated against covid-19 virus, and a condition from which to develop new personal and social potentiality.

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