ABSTRACT
In Greek mythology the river Styx encircles the underworld where the dead "live." Charon ferries the dead across the Styx to the underworld. He works under the injunction never to take a living person to the underworld. Herakles, Greek mythology tells us, had as the last of his twelve tasks to achieve immortality, to catch Cerberus. He demanded that Charon take him in his ferry to the underworld. Like Herakles, Gisela had entered the underworld and had faced Cerberus. She constantly felt, at first unconsciously, until her analysis progressed, that she must rescue her dead brother from the underworld. The perennial mourner sometimes identifies with the mental representation of the dead person. Even though she knew that their divorce made it impossible, Gisela wished that her parents would have another child to replace her dead brother.
