51社区

Phil Garrity is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology at 51社区. He recently had a piece in the book聽Gemini and the Sacred: Twins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology.聽I鈥檓 delighted to speak with him about twinship, otherness, and his work and experience with critical illnesses.

础苍驳别濒补:听You recently contributed an epilogue, along with your twin brother, to the book聽Gemini and the Sacred: Twins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology, edited by Kimberley C. Patton, who is your former professor at Harvard Divinity School. Tell us a little about the book and also what it was like to co-write the epilogue with your twin.

Phil:聽Shortly before starting divinity school, I participated in the making of聽, a short film written and directed by my identical twin brother Joe. The story was set in the town of Twinsburg, Ohio, a real place that hosts the world鈥檚 largest gathering of twins every year. Although Joe initially conceived of the film as a light-hearted comedy, a meta-narrative began to unfold on the film set. As tensions escalated between us, we edited the script in real-time to mirror our darkening dynamic. We were starting to see how the story we were trying to write was actually writing us.

A few years later, in my final year of divinity school, I stumbled across a course entitled, 鈥淭wins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology鈥� taught by Professor Kimberley Patton. I was intrigued but also ambivalent about taking the course, as the complexities of filming聽罢飞颈苍蝉产耻谤驳听and the turmoil that followed made me wary of retreading that terrain. As we read about twin myths across different geographies and cultures, I came to see how mythology could illuminate the subtleties and particularities of my own twin dynamic鈥攖he interchange of consonance and dissonance, intimacy and alienation, recognition and non-recognition. A few years after graduation, Professor Patton invited Joe and me to co-write the epilogue to聽Gemini and the Sacred, an anthology of scholarly essays on twin myths. Through the writing process, we were able to revisit the tumultuous making of聽Twinsburg, to situate it in the broader context of our lives, and to examine all of it through a mythological lens. The process of writing the epilogue, similar to the making of the film, was certainly challenging, but ultimately cathartic and healing for Joe and me. We were able to see how, at its core, it is a story of deep love, a meditation on grief, and coming to terms with the threat of losing each other鈥攎e to bone cancer and Joe to suicidal depression.

On another note, I owe it to Professor Patton for pointing me toward Pacifica after divinity school. She helped me continue what had been initiated in the twins class: making the journey from what Hillman calls the 鈥渟pirit-realm鈥� of reason, order, clarity, and light (characteristic of the theology and philosophy I had been immersed in during divinity school) and descending into the 鈥渟oul-realm鈥� of emotion, chaos, murkiness, and embodiment (characteristic of the mythology and depth psychology we鈥檙e studying at Pacifica).

础苍驳别濒补:听In the epilogue, you and Joe write of childhood as 鈥渢aking one step further than the other, inventing and mutually defying boundaries, we mapped a vast territory鈥� We created and amplified our own rules, those foundational myths that were more convincing than anything that came afterward in our lives.鈥� All cultures have mythological figures of twins, many possessing magical qualities. I love the idea that twins both create their own mythology together and also touch upon a nerve in humanity that reverberates into the mythic. What is it that so draws us to twinship as something special, in some cases, even sacred?

Phil:聽I think that twins embody a deep paradox about our identity as human beings. They seem to represent a kind of unity-in-multiplicity or, to use a term introduced by Henry Corbin, an聽unus-ambo, which conceives of selfhood as a 鈥渂i-unity,鈥� a paradoxical state of being 鈥渙ne-yet-two.鈥� In writing the epilogue, Joe and I arrived at a perplexing question about our own origin as identical twins: Who were 鈥渨e鈥� before the zygotic cleavage that split us into bundles of cells? Presumably that single zygote that preceded us was its own potential being, before it became two actual beings. But who was that? Was it Joe? Me? Someone else entirely?

Any attempt to answer that question seems to point to a place of non-duality, where 鈥渕e鈥� and 鈥渘ot-me鈥� somehow coexist. I鈥檓 reminded here of a Buddhist k艒an: 鈥淪how me your original face before you were born.鈥� Of course, this is an impossible task for the rational mind, but I think it speaks to a deeper and more universal truth about all of us. Thich Nhat Hanh calls it 鈥渋nterbeing鈥�: the reality that we are interconnected with everything and that no one thing can be cleanly separated from the rest of existence. While the bond between twins may seem anomalous, I believe it is a reflection of the connection we all possess, twins and singletons alike. We are all tied into the web of life and entangled with one another.

础苍驳别濒补:听How does depth psychology treat twinship? In a world where it is considered healthy to individuate from our families, does one ever individuate from a twin, and would one even want to do so in the first place?

Phil:聽I can say that, from my own experience, individuating as a twin has been a fraught and delicate process. Some time ago I learned of the term 鈥渆nantiodromia,鈥� which is credited to pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus and was reintroduced to the West by Jung, who describes it as 鈥渢he emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time [which] occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life [and] in time an equally powerful counter-position is built up [in the unconscious].鈥� In many ways, I feel like enantiodromia helps to explain the tension and turmoil that surfaced between Joe and me in our early adulthood. While we had always shared similar interests in childhood, the differences that emerged between us later on threatened to divide us from each other. Joe didn鈥檛 seem to understand or appreciate my interest in religion and spirituality, and I didn鈥檛 value his interest in art and filmmaking. It reached a point where we didn鈥檛 seem to recognize each other or really 鈥済et鈥� what fueled each of us on a deeper level. There was something deeply painful and even threatening about that, which led to the turbulence that culminated during the making of聽罢飞颈苍蝉产耻谤驳.听

Freud spoke of 鈥渢he return of the repressed鈥濃�攖he notion of neglected, abandoned, or discarded parts of us showing up again and asking for our attention鈥攐r, if unheeded, demanding it鈥攐ften in uncomfortable or painful ways. In a certain sense, Joe served as a vessel for my own grief that I didn鈥檛 want to face, and despite my attempts to push him away, he emerged as that 鈥渦nconscious opposite鈥� or 鈥減owerful counter-position鈥� that eventually demanded my attention. Toward the end of the epilogue, I ask Joe a rhetorical question: 鈥淲hy do you need me?鈥� adding, 鈥淚t is a question meant not really for you, but for the universe or God or whomever wove us together as two-in-one, whomever stitched us into the fabric of everything and everyone else. I pull at the threads to free myself, insistent on finding security in selfhood, safety in self-sufficiency, but find it only unravels us both.鈥�

Much of our journey since聽Twinsburg聽has been learning to see and accept each other as truly 鈥渙ther.鈥� I鈥檝e learned that the more that I can make peace with the 鈥渙ther鈥� in me鈥攖o accept that part as a mystery beyond my control and understanding鈥攖he more I was able to accept Joe as 鈥渙ther.鈥� In this way, the intrapsychic work of making peace with the inner stranger has facilitated the interpersonal work of making peace with the outer one. There鈥檚 something paradoxical here: In a certain sense, by acknowledging each other鈥檚 ineffability, Joe and I are returning to our mysterious and fused identity as young children, when we called each other 鈥淵aYa鈥� until the age of five. Joe was YaYa, I was YaYa, and nearly everything around us was YaYa. It鈥檚 a strange consolation to recognize that even though I don鈥檛 know Joe now, I didn鈥檛 know him then, simply because there was no 鈥淛oe鈥� to know鈥攖here was only YaYa.

础苍驳别濒补:听You are two years into your Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology here at Pacifica, having done your Master鈥檚 at Harvard in part on 鈥渢he psychospiritual dimensions of spirituality and illness experience鈥� and focusing in your current consulting work on Serious Illness Care. Was your own experience with illness the foundation for your academic and professional focus, if you don鈥檛 mind sharing about that?

Phil:聽The question about how to carry forward my cancer experience is alive for me, as I am ambivalent about putting it at the center of my academic and professional life. My mentor during hospital chaplaincy training said, 鈥淲e should minister from our scars, not our wounds.鈥� I wonder sometimes whether I鈥檓 keeping open a wound that should otherwise close and heal. I鈥檓 currently doing my practicum training at a medical hospital in San Francisco, and some days I wonder, 鈥淲hat the hell am I still doing in a hospital?鈥� I spent so many nights in a hospital bed and tied to machines and now I鈥檓 back here again. It鈥檚 like jumping into cold water most days. The smell of the soap still nauseates me鈥攁 Pavlovian response that I associate with my experience doing chemotherapy. This is perhaps the archetype of the wounded healer, which is not a particularly comfortable one to embody. But there鈥檚 something that draws me back to that place, and I recognize it as something of a calling. It鈥檚 a beautiful thing when you spend time with the sick and dying and you come to sense the precariousness of things. The boundary between patient and provider becomes porous, and you come to see how we are forever interchanging who is in the hospital bed, who is giving and receiving care. It is a recognition that I have been here before and I will be here again, that I am caring for you now, but you will care for me later.

础苍驳别濒补:听What drew you to Pacifica, and in particular to the Clinical program? Will your dissertation work here continue to focus on illness, and are you intending to take this work into clinical settings once you graduate?

Phil:聽I appear to be moving in that direction, as my class assignments have generally been revolving around the psychospiritual dimensions of illness experience. At the moment, my dissertation topic is gravitating toward the exploration of how psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy can help alleviate existential distress and death anxiety in patients facing life-threatening illness such as cancer. We鈥檙e on the cusp of a revolution in psychology with the renaissance of psychedelic research, and the therapeutic potential of these medicines is astounding. We鈥檙e likely only a few years away from psilocybin being legalized in California for therapeutic use, as it was recently in Oregon and Colorado. The need for integrative psychotherapy will be key, and I鈥檓 curious to continue exploring that frontier, especially as it involves people at the end of life.

As part of my dissertation, I鈥檓 also planning to draw on some things I was studying in divinity school, in particular apophatic theology, which refers to the 鈥渦nsaying鈥� of the divine by means of negation. I want to examine how mystical experiences engendered by psilocybin can be understood through the lens of Christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart, who spoke of God as both ground and abyss. The journey of the mystic is characterized by 鈥渆xistential and epistemic divestment鈥� 鈥攐r the loss of one鈥檚 sense of self and orienting beliefs鈥攚hich precedes the聽unio mysitica, and this trajectory seems like an apt framework for understanding both the psychedelic journey and the process of dying. Jung was strongly influenced by Meister Eckhart, too, so there鈥檚 a bridge there between Christian mysticism and depth psychology that I would also like to explore.

础苍驳别濒补:听What does depth psychology bring to the experience of illness that can help us to understand and perhaps even endure things that do not seem endurable? Can it help people to heal or at least find meaning in the experience?

Phil:聽At its core, I think that depth psychology is about encountering the 鈥渙ther鈥濃�攊ntrapsychically, interpersonally, and transpersonally. Especially in the cancer world, it is easy to adopt an adversarial stance toward the disease, using the battalistic language of 鈥渇ighting鈥� and 鈥渂eating鈥� the cancer. However benign it may seem, these metaphors imply a kind of self-division and enmity, pitting the good parts of us against the bad parts, the healthy cells against the rogue cells. During my own cancer experience, I was deliberate in abstaining from that kind of language. The intrapsychic work I had done in the year leading up to the diagnosis, when I struggled mightily to make peace with the inner stranger, served me well. The 鈥渙ther鈥� was no longer an aspect of my mind; now it was embodied. In this sense, the confrontation wasn鈥檛 intrapsychic, it was intrasomatic. And I was plenty familiar with what it meant to go to war with myself, so when the diagnosis came, I surrendered, wanting peace instead. The practice that year was to cultivate forgiveness for myself, to offer love to the wayward parts of me, to the cells that had gone rogue. The question was: Can I love this body, even if it kills me? Can I love this life, even if it lets me down? To live into the 鈥淵es,鈥� even with all the doubts and uncertainties and mess of feelings, is to practice a kind of love that defies all logic and breaks the heart鈥攂ut breaks it open.

Jung famously said, 鈥淚 would rather be whole than good.鈥� I would rather accept all of myself, the good and the bad, than cut away and cast off the bad parts, even just mentally. And just as this was true for my body, I tried to cultivate that attitude toward my life. There was a natural temptation to see cancer as a mere detour, one that would eventually lead me back to the main road of my 鈥渞eal life.鈥� But the sobering, undeniable fact was that there may not be a main road to which to return. If my treatment failed and the cancer spread and I spent my final days in hospitals and hospice, I didn鈥檛 want to deny the path I was on, to stubbornly insist that I聽should聽be back on the main road. So when I found my mind escaping to that idealized future, I would gently invite it back to the present, to stay with what聽is, rather than insisting on how things should be. There was a profound peace in simply abiding in that place, rather than trying to mentally escape the present, however uncomfortable or imperfect it was. I found that my own resistance was often more agonizing than the thing I was resisting. When we stop trying to push away those unwanted parts, we can listen to what they have to say and recognize how they鈥檝e been silenced by an ego that insists it is the maker of its own destiny. To quote Jung again, 鈥淭he experience of the Self is always a defeat for the ego.鈥� When we learn to yield to the 鈥渙ther鈥� in this way, we discover something far more precious than a healed body or a long life.

础苍驳别濒补:听Thank you so much for sharing with me, and I look forward to seeing your academic career continue to blossom here.