ABSTRACT
Aeschylus understood the difficulty of achieving such a place when the deepest passions that are aroused lie within the family. The mortal struggle with the Furies, conceived as the haunted, angry, and destructive side of the self, needs to be understood as having a past history that goes beyond the individual experience within the immediate family. In contemporary terms, the individual, suffering from a neurotic cycle of repeated self-destructive action, may need to be helped to reflect upon the weight of his ancestral past that he may be carrying unconsciously. The destructive repetition of looking for the lost love occurred because neither Louise nor her mother had conscious knowledge of the past. If Louise’s mother had been given some knowledge of her own dead mother, then Louise might have been freed from trying to find expression for her mother’s loss.
