Table Of ContentModern Myths and Medical
Consumerism
Modern Myths and Medical Consumerism is concerned with the loss of a
sense of limit in technological medicine today, and the way in which the
denial of death leads to an uncontrollable, consumeristic multiplication of
needs. Taking its starting point from C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology, the
book gives a symbolic interpretation based on archetypal, philosophical
and socio-psychoanalytic ideas developed through the author’s personal
experience, moving from the medical to the psychoanalytical paradigm.
Lanfranchi depicts ideal sources of medicine, based on archetypal material
drawn from Greek myth, and discusses the progressive steps of the doctor’s
consciousness’ evolution up to contemporary times. Critiquing current
medicine and its ‘modern myths’, the book suggests the prevailing model
of economic development is unsustainable, and provides prospects of a
more contained ecological medicine and an ethical approach that will allow
readers to reflect and move towards a more qualified attitude to mortality.
The book meets the need to transform medicine into a critical domain
of human experience, capable of providing essential services consistent
with the naturalness of death and environmental sustainability. As such, it
will be vital reading to academics in the fields of psychotherapy, analytical
psychology, psychiatry and medicine, and those with a philosophical or
sociological background.
Antonio Karim Lanfranchi is Senior Cardiology Specialist at the University
Hospital L. Sacco, Milan.
Research in Analytical Psychology and
Jungian Studies Series
Series Advisor: Andrew Samuels
Professor of Analytical Psychology, Essex University, UK
The R esearch in Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies series features
research-focused volumes involving qualitative and quantitative research,
historical/archival research, theoretical developments, heuristic research,
grounded theory, narrative approaches, collaborative research, practitioner-
led research, and self-study. The series also includes focused works by clinical
practitioners, and provides new research informed explorations of the work
of C. G. Jung that will appeal to researchers, academics, and scholars alike.
Books in this series:
Jung and Kierkegaard
Researching a Kindred Spirit in the Shadows
Amy Cook
Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali
Leanne Whitney
Shame and the Making of Art
A Depth Psychological Perspective
Deborah E. Cluff
Modern Myths and Medical Consumerism
The Asclepius Complex
Antonio Karim Lanfranchi
For more information about this series please visit: www.routledge.com/
Research-in-Analytical-Psychology-and-Jungian-Studies/book-series/
JUNGIANSTUDIES.
Modern Myths and Medical
Consumerism
The Asclepius Complex
Antonio Karim Lanfranchi
Translated by Jonathan Hunt
First published in English 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Antonio Karim Lanfranchi
The right of Antonio Karim Lanfranchi to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Published in Italian by Moretti & Vitali in 2010 as L a vita appesa a
un filo. Miti d’oggi e consumismo sanitario .
Translated by Jonathan Hunt
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lanfranchi, Antonio, author.
Title: Modern myths and medical consumerism : the Asclepius
complex / Antonio Lanfranchi.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY :
Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017056721 (print) | LCCN 2017059060
(ebook) | ISBN 9781351167642 (E-book) | ISBN
9780815348221 (hbk) | ISBN 9781351167642 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Medicine—Philosophy. | Physician and patient.
Classification: LCC R723 (ebook) | LCC R723 .L348 2018 (print) |
DDC 610.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017056721
ISBN: 978-0-8153-4822-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-16764-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To Cristina, Edoardo and Guglielmo
Contents
List of figures ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
PART I
A metapsychology of the doctor’s consciousness 7
1 The story of Asclepius 9
The birth of Asclepius and the symbolic origins
of medicine 9
Asclepius’s childhood, from Chiron to Prometheus 13
The Asklepieions and the medical tradition 17
Beyond Prometheus: the end of tragedy and the coming
of dialectic – the rational origins of medicine 18
Nature personified: Pan 22
The Asclepius complex: the descent and death of the god 26
Chiron and unrepressed death 27
Asclepius’s progeny: the breaking up of the archetype and the
beginnings of specialization 31
The wounded healer: the present-day relevance of the myth
of Asclepius 36
2 Alfred Ziegler’s archetypal medicine 49
viii Contents
PART II
Medicine and society in our time 61
3 Modern myths in medicine 63
‘Necessary’ repression 63
The neurosis of life 66
Repression of death and systemic waste: a ‘cultural’
cause of superfluity? 68
The mythology of everyday life 70
4 Narcissus’s mirror 85
Narcissus and the shadow 86
The loss of the sense of limit 89
Examples of omnipotent solitude 91
Epilogue: the weight of limit and unlimited hope 96
5 The illusory nature of concretism 101
The inner spectator, the harpsichord 101
6 Considerations on courage 107
Courage in our time 107
St Anthony’s Fire 110
Perseus’s courage: the indirect vision 113
PART III
Life hanging by a thread 123
7 Illness as an experience of the soul 125
The experience of illness and furor sanandi 125
Solitude in serious illness 130
Time only is our own 134
Life hanging by a thread 136
8 The globalization of medicine: towards an
ecological medicine 143
Index 151
Figures
0.1 Asclepius, with his serpent-entwined staff. Archaeological
Museum of Epidaurus. 6
1.1 Chiron instructs young Achilles. National Archaeological
Museum, Naples, Italy. 14
2.1 Thanatos between Aphrodite and Persephone. Burstein
collection/Corbis . 49
4.1 Caravaggio’s Narcissus (1594–96). In the public domain,
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome . 85
6.1 Triptych of the Temptation of St Anthony . Hieronymus
Bosch. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. 111
6.2 Perseus with the Head of Medusa. Benvenuto Cellini.
Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence . 115
7.1 Book of the Dead of Hunefer, Sheet 3, Egypt, 19th
Dynasty, c. 1275 B.C.E., 44.5 × 30.7 cm, Thebes, Egypt . 129
7.2 Two coronary angiograms in two different patients with
acute coronary syndrome. Left side: left anterior descending
branch of the left coronary artery. Right side: right coronary
artery. The arrows indicate severe blockages . 139
