Evil, Imagination and the Unrepressed Unconscious: The Value of William Blake's Satanic ‘Error’ for Clinical Practice

Abstract

The images and writings of William Blake offer profound insights for the clinician in a form that clearly reveals his visionary ability regarding the unrepressed unconscious. He is particularly helpful with the work of imagination and the presence of evil concerning unconscious process. This paper explores the creative value of Blake's contribution when working with certain patients in the consulting room and for the purposes of psychotherapeutic research: he has inspired many psychoanalytic and Jungian papers in the past. However, in the world of psychotherapy, Blake's complicated but illuminating mythology has been somewhat neglected in favour of interpreting him through the lens of analytic thought. While setting this paper within an analytic frame, the writer aims to offer an overview of Blake's central concepts – particularly those concerning Satan and the state of ‘Error’ – that are revealed in their most refined form in his celebrated ‘Illustrations of the Book of Job’. A number of Blake's paintings and etchings illustrate this paper, providing an additional and vital avenue of communication through image. Clinical vignettes related to psychotic levels of the psyche illustrate the central theme.

Blake's Job: Adventures in Becoming by JasonWright. Published by Routledge, Oxon, 2023; 212 pp, £130.00 hardback, £29.99 paperback.

“…For example, Job's journey is echoed in the nuanced stances of the 'recording angels' who appear in many of the illustrations. Although several analytic writers have used Blake's illustrations in the past, they, apart from Edinger (1986), use only a selection of them to elucidate clinical work (e.g., Leader, 2015;Milner, 1987a and1987b). Wright, however, takes each illustration in turn, interpreting afresh and elaborating on the whole journey in detail.…”