ABSTRACT
In clinical work, the lack of cognitive context is what organizes the relational phenomenon that analysts' label "enactment". The terms "knowing" and "not-knowing" are relatively easy to think about as the experiences to which they refer are explicit. "Sort-of-knowing", however, is different. The Fly Truffler can be read from many different frames of reference, including as an allegorical portrayal of the Orpheus myth in which the doorway that leads to reunion with a lost beloved is beneath the ground—the doorway to Hell. Self-continuity of course feels threatened in a lesser way even without annihilation anxiety. However, when the inability to separate self and other—total depersonalization—is a genuine possibility, the function of dissociation as a protection against out-of-control affect dysregulation becomes a last-ditch effort to survive as a self. It can no longer assure that one or more parts of the self will continue to engage with the world in a way that is functional though limited.
