Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

"My shadow-soul flies into an embrace with the patient. I don’t consider him a patient, he
is a person who seeks help. I learned that I must not concern myself with the manifest
symptoms of his illness, like the arthritic swellings or the skin cancer, instead I have to heal the
whole person.... I cannot describe what happens in psychological terms, I have to use common
language, which I, nota bene, borrow from the experience of a woman. I know no better
metaphor, my shadow-soul makes love to the person. With the only difference that in
lovemaking the embrace precedes the dissociation, which leaves a lifeless woman in the arms
of her perplexed lover. The French call this ‘la petite mort!’" Alexandra laughed. "Maybe one
should look at lovemaking as a healing process."
Dahl blushed. "Alexandra, you are singularly outspoken and honest. Few people would
admit such a complex of emotions without dressing it up in some ‘higher’ garb. My religious
informants speak of ‘partaking in God’s love,’ I prefer your analogy by far."
Dahl shook his head and gave her an inquisitive glance. "Would you like to discuss your
hunch that in many cases the emotional condition of the patient contributes to his illness and
makes your healing possible?"
Alexandra smiled. "I am primarily concerned with the question why I have no success in
many cases, and how to select patients for healing. I notice that one trauma appears in almost
all cases: the loss of an important reference person accompanied by strong guilt feelings, a
spouse, a lover, a mother.“ Dahl nodded.
“At times a serious, guilt-ridden emotional estrangement may be sufficient,“ continued
Alexandra. “A few years later arthritis or cancer strikes. The person seems, subconsciously of
course, obsessed by a wish to die, associated by a deep, often carefully hidden, depression.—
These cases I seem to be able to heal, provided the illness has not progressed so far as to
have physically destroyed the body of the patient to the point of no return. Obviously, I cannot
induce the self-regeneration of a completely cancer-ridden liver or bone system."
She paused and eyed him. "Maybe one could study people stricken by cancer or
arthritis and elicit the suppressed emotional origins of their illness. It should be possible to
predict the probability of a person contracting cancer from such a profile, and prescribe some
course of action, for example, meditation exercises or psychotherapy to reduce their chances
of killing themselves through a breakdown of their immune system."
Dahl very seriously said. "Bear in mind that such an investigation would be a terrible
drain for the psychotherapist."
He leaned back in his chair. "For some time now, I have been tempted to ask you how
you deal with the emotional demands your healing work must make on you. I would imagine
that the burden of stripping yourself emotionally to the extent you described would lead to
serious symptoms of introversion or withdrawal. You show neither. How do you handle your
emotions under this kind of stress?"
For the first time in their exchange Alexandra hesitated. An unexpected thought was
taking hold in her mind. Were her black visions and the irrational coincidences during her
journey signs of emotional exhaustion?
"I have not given these questions much thought." She said pensively. "I have been so
excited by my discoveries that my emotional energies seemed boundless. But very recently I
have had a series of disturbing experiences of clairvoyance which could be a sign of an
overwrought psyche. You once referred to this as noetic engrandissement. In the past my way
of dealing with my emotional problems has been to extrovert them spontaneously. I know no
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