Susan's Drawings in The Hands of the Living God

Milner's account of her work with a schizophrenic patient, Susan, can be read as a record of the process of coming to depend on "unconscious creativity." Dragstedt observes that Susan's analysis with Milner occurred over aperiod of at least eighteen years, beginning when Susan was 23 years old (Dragstedt, 1998). Previous to the analysis Susan had received two ЕСТ (electroconvulsive therapy) treatments while under medical supervision. These ЕСТ treatments proved extremely destructive to her psychological well-being. In her first session with Milner, Susan claimed that she "had lost her soul" since receiving ЕСТ and that "the world was no longer outside her" (Milner 1969, p. xix). She also felt that since the ЕСТ she had had no inner world or internal perceptions as well as had lost the power to grow mentally or spiritually. Milner believed that much of Susan's pathology could be traced to a deep splitting tendency: her disturbed childhood had produced in her an extreme and excessive concentration on "logic and outer things at the expense of reverie and fantasy" (Milner 1969, p. 41). Milner also refers to the split as one between "articulate and inarticulate" levels of functioning, an "ecstasy-giving 'God'" and "death-giving horror" (i.e., a "devil" who "thinks he does it all himself and her

Marion Milner on Mysticism and Creativity 25

desire for "primary undifferentiated wholeness" while at the same time needing to face the real world of separateness) (Milner, 1969, pp. 34, 37,41).

Milner chronicles much of Susan's analysis by means of interpreting selected examples of her voluminous drawings (approximately 4,000). Milner viewed Susan's drawings as a "non-discursive affirmation" of her internal world. During this period Milner had also written On Not Being Able to Paint (1950) - which examines Milner's own explorations into drawing as a medium for expressing unconscious processes. Dragstedt (1998) observes that it was through drawing that Susan was able to re-enter the world for the first time.

A number of Susan's drawings contain religious symbols: particularly devils, Christ, crosses, communion cups, as well as references to mysticism (Raab, 2000). Milner believed that before the ЕСТ Susan had bodily experiences which could be termed mystical (Dragstedt, 1998). Milner's interpretations of these symbols in her drawings, it seems, are consistent with her interpretation of Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job, suggesting that Milner thought both Susan and Job had similar pathologies. As mentioned, Milner was convinced that Susan's symptoms could be traced to a deep splitting tendency between conscious and unconscious levels of functioning. Like Job, who lived only at a conscious level of awareness, Susan was cut off from her internal world. Also like Job, Susan wished to deny her dependence on others. In other words, Susan's "secret pride" was her desire to be omnipotent and to rely only on her conscious mind. The picture in which Job's God appears as the devil (Plate 11 of Blake's Illustrations) in particular held Milner's attention, and it is quite possible that Milner's interpretation of Blake's Job is Susan's analysis discussed through an aesthetic medium. The analysis centered around helping Susan to accept dependence while acknowledging separateness and destroying the illusion of omnipotence created by her conscious mind. Despite the similarities between Job and Susan, their differences also need to be acknowledged. Unlike Job's story, Susan's childhood biography was extremely troubled: "She had grown up with a psychotic mother and a violent 'uncle,' whose identity as her father was concealed from her ... Her mother prevented her from walking by tying her in her crib until she was two-year-old [sic], out of fear that Susan would become bowlegged. ... As a young child, Susan was involved in a lengthy series of molestations by a neighbor, an old man, and, in her adolescence, was molested by her mother's estranged husband, the man whom she erroneously believed to be her father" (Dragstedt, 1998, p. 488). It seems Milner used Blake's Job - while adding her own interpretation of this ancient biblical tale - to help her understand what had happened to Susan.

Given Susan's traumatic childhood and the severe degree of her pathology, it is noteworthy that Milner's analysis with her was at least moderately successful. Susan in fact went on to enjoy a long marriage to a man who had renounced the priesthood. While their lives were supported by the Catholic church, Susan was able to maintain a job at an art museum until she reached retirement (Dragstedt, 1988). Needless to say, Susan did recover her internal world, as suggested by her diary near the end of her eighteen-year analysis:

26 Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health

It is very difficult to communicate things which, although we are aware of so clearly in our minds, are somehow not transferable into words - and yet the awareness is unmistakable - the awareness of a reality that I have not been in

contact with for sixteen years I can remember them now as years of blackness.

Blackness in mind and heart. Being unaware of oneself and consequently of other people makes it impossible to observe and question one's own actions so one behaves as one will, with no consideration for anybody or anything. This realization is awful to be conscious of. Not only has one violated the sense concerning others, but one has also gone against any duty to oneself and one's own integrity - and if you believe in God, then it is intensely against him that you have turned - and your predestined self, the self you know not of, the self which thinks and grows regardless of conscious choice, this you have had to put out of existence. (Milner 1969, 375-6)

Once can almost picture Blake's Job saying these words after his realization that his God has not been the true God. Milner's choice of title of the book describing her analysis with Susan, in fact, is taken from a poem by D.H. Lawrence titled, "The Hands of God:" "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them." These lines illustrate what happened to both Job and Susan when they lost touch with modes of unconscious reality, and hence the "true God" within.