ABSTRACT
This commentary concerns different kind of bonds and bindings. Traditionally, we are bound by guilt, conscience, and ethics. Tension between destruction and caring, our murderous impulses and love for others, evoke fundamental human dramas. Eigen elaborates these with reference to the biblical story of God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice his son. We are bound in many ways, but God’s command concerns attachment bonds and conflicts of loyalty. Our destructive impulses can surrender to psychotic commands in the form of hallucinations and delusions to destroy others and ourselves with no room for reflection or self-questioning. Eigen and the author point to a possibility of harnessing destructive emotional energy through opposing oneself, using inner dialogue and perennial struggle, while also holding oneself like a mother holds a baby. Conflict can then become instrumental for personality growth and maturation.
