Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2013, 58, 347–365

The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow:

revisiting Jung’s work on the quaternity

Christine Driver, London

Abstract: Through a series of clinical vignettes, this paper considers the impact of
religious belief, specifically Roman Catholicism, on the psyche and development of
mind; in particular, there will be a focus on the influences of the conflation of mater-
nal beliefs with a Catholic belief system when the loss or absence of the father is a
primary factor. Further, it will be shown in case examples that split off aspects of
the personal shadow such as conflicted and aggressive emotions related to mother
and father can conflate with the collective numinous and religious aspects of the ‘dark
side’ of the God-representation and result in ‘religious’ persecutory symptoms. This
has a debilitating effect on the emerging personality, leaving it prone to fears, anxieties
and psychotic pockets of experience when there is a numinous persecutory shadow in
the background that affects and limits the individual’s development. The implications
and findings drawn from the clinical vignettes are used to consider the impact of an
interrelationship and conflation between aspects of the psyche and religious beliefs.
Jung’s work on the Trinity and the ‘problem of the fourth’ (Jung 1942/1948/1991)
is also reconsidered in relation to the role of the feminine, the maternal and the
‘reality of matter’. A diagram of the multiple levels of the quaternity is used to elaborate
and expand on Jung’s concept.

Key words: Catholicism, God-representation, Holy Mother, quaternity, religion,

shadow, Trinity

Introduction
Many analysts, psychologists and researchers have studied psychology and religion
over the past 120 years. Freudian/post-Freudian, Jungian/post-Jungian and object
relations meta-psychology have all been utilized to study the psychology of religion
and many of these approaches have used developmental psychology and ideas
surrounding this particular field to consider the way the psyche conceives a god-
image. Rizzuto’s (1981) work is fundamental here; she considers the conjunction
of psychology and religion through psychodynamic, object relations and depth
psychology perspectives concluding that ‘in the course of development each
individual produces an idiosyncratic and highly personalized representation of
God derived from his/her object relations, his/her evolving self-representations,
and his/her environmental system of belief’ (Rizzuto 1981, p. 90). Studies from

0021-8774/2013/5803/347 © 2013, The Society of Analytical Psychology

Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-5922.12018
348 Christine Driver

empirical research carried out in the USA (Boyatzis 2006; Dumas &
Nissley-Tsiopinis 2006) indicate how parental religiousness affects parent
and child functioning and Boyatzis (2006, p. 249) emphasizes that such
studies ‘are actually looking at the ‘mothers’ religiosity and parenting’ and
that ‘our knowledge of the family-religion link has been filtered mostly
through mothers’ eyes’ (ibid. 2006, p. 249).
Figlio (2006), in his examination of fundamentalism, considers issues of
separation and loss and, by implication, the relationship with the maternal.
He points out that fundamentalist belief systems tend toward narcissistic iden-
tification with an ego ideal that maintains certainty and defends the individual
(and the group) from loss, desolation and disillusionment. He concludes that
there is a ‘quest for purity, linked with an extensive projection of the impure’
(ibid. 2006, p. 123) and that aggression is directed against the ‘outside
representatives of the causes to which they impute their dreaded internal decay’
(ibid. 2006, p. 121). These states, which Figlio also links to an extreme form of
the paranoid schizoid position (ibid. 2006, p. 123), are a defence against the
desolation of depressive anxiety.
What both Rizzuto and Figlio touch on is that loss and separation from the
maternal and anxieties around aggression are all implicated in the generation
and perception of a god-image. What this exploration considers is a different
perspective which is the influence and impact of the mother’s religious beliefs on
the developing child and the way these might interact with the infant’s fears and
anxieties about survival, aggression and separation. It is the way a god-image is
introjected and becomes part of the internal mental apparatus in relation to the
perception of self and other that is significant in how the individual perceives
and relates to the world. When it is part of family culture, religion influences
and shapes the psyche through its creeds and dogmas. Simultaneously, the ways
that affects are expressed and managed or defended against through religious
belief contribute profoundly to psychological development.

Jung’s work on religion

Jung’s work on religion focused on how the structure of the psyche influenced
the perception of the god-image rather than the impact of religion on the
psyche. Jung’s fundamental orientation in this direction is evident in ‘A psycho-
logical approach to the dogma of the Trinity’ (Jung 1942/1948/1991) in which
he examines the emergence of the doctrine of the Trinity and its relationship to
numbers and the dynamic of opposites. Jung concludes that in order to reflect
dimensional reality beyond a two-dimensional dyad of opposites, two pairs of
opposites are needed in which ‘the “other” is the “fourth” element, whose
nature it is to be the “adversary” and to resist harmony’ (Jung 1942/1948/
1991, para. 188). He cites Goethe’s comment that the ‘fourth thinks for them
all’ (ibid., para. 183). It was this exclusion of reality and the undifferentiated
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 349

and primitive affects which formed, for Jung, the ‘problem of the fourth’ and
‘the problem of the shadow in relation to the Christian Trinity’ (ibid.).
For Jung the major problem with the Trinity that underpinned his arguments
with Victor White (Lammers & Cunningham, 2007) was that it did not
incorporate the shadow. For Jung the Christian dogma of the Trinity and the
‘problem of the fourth’ (Jung 1942/1948/1991) revolve around the conflict with
the father and the importance of integrating the shadow and the ‘dark son’
through a resolution of the dynamics of the opposites. From a psychological
point of view it is therefore interesting to consider the Trinity as a motif which
expresses both the struggle with the father and fears around aggression, parricide
and infanticide. Interestingly, what Jung writes in relation to the Trinity mirrors,
in some respects, Freud’s work on the Oedipus complex and religious motifs in
Totem and Taboo (1913/1914/2001) and Moses and Monotheism (1937/1939/
2001). Both were, in their different ways, writing about the struggle with the
father and separation in relation to religious motifs. What neither really focused
on was the significance and importance of the maternal and feminine in this.
Jung is aware of the exclusion of the feminine and comments in relation to the
‘problem of the fourth’ that ‘a mother interpretation would reduce the specific
meaning of the Holy Ghost to a primitive image and destroy the most essential
of the qualities attributed to him’ (Jung 1942/1948/1991, para. 236). This is
an interesting comment but it is one that Jung does not pursue. This failure to
examine the feminine and maternal in relation to his consideration of the Christian
symbol of the Trinity is something that Heisig (1979, p. 64), Clift (1983) and Main
(2006, p. 306) reflect upon.
Jung does consider the relationship with the maternal, the mother archetype,
and the maternal god-image and views these interactions in terms of the way in
which ‘everything original in the child is indissolubly blended with the mother-
image’ (1928/1931/1987, para. 723). In an earlier work he considers the battle
for separation from the mother and related religious imagery (Jung 1911-1912/
1952/1981a, para. 419–63) and elsewhere writes about separation from the
mother in a symbolic and mythological way in ‘Symbols of the mother and of
rebirth’ (ibid.). In this text, Jung considers the tension between the desire for
regression to ‘the habits of childhood, and above all the relation to mother’
(Jung 1911-1912/1952/1981b, para. 313) including the necessity of the incest
taboo which opposes it. Jung sees these opposites being transcended through
the canalization of libido ‘into mother analogies’ (ibid.) which enables progression
of the libido and ‘even attains a level of consciousness’ (ibid.).
However, Jung’s work about Christianity, the Trinity and the ‘problem of the
fourth’ is largely written from a Protestant viewpoint in which the primary struggle
is with God the Father and he overlooks the different and broader dimensions that
would evolve from considering these issues from a more Catholic perspective. What
Jung fails to appreciate is the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism. To
some extent he was aware of his lack of understanding of Catholic theology and this
led him to have ‘frequent discussions with catholic [sic] as well as protestant [sic]
350 Christine Driver

theologians’ (Lammers & Cunningham 2007, p. 8). However as Clark (1971)

points out, Protestants tend to conceive their ‘gods as male’ (ibid.) whereas
Catholics are ‘deeply involved with the feminine principle’ (ibid., p. 177), especially
via the symbolism and imagery of the Virgin Mary, and this generates a different set
of experiences. What Jung also overlooks is the psychological impact of specific
religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, forms of worship and the collective shadow on
the psyche, in particular the specific experience of Catholicism and its teachings,
especially when they are experienced through the maternal. Clinical work bears
out some interesting and important perspectives on the influence of religion on
the psyche and the significance of the maternal as mediated through a Catholic
belief system. The case material below will provide ground for a re-consideration
of Jung’s ideas about the quaternity.

Clinical material
A number of patients with whom I have worked have grown up within Catholic
families. It is clear that the specific creeds, dogmas and rituals of Catholicism
have had powerful emotional, psychological and cognitive influences, primarily
via the mother’s religiosity and belief system, and that these beliefs have
influenced their children’s mental structures and patterns of perception. I am
basing my reflections on the patient group with whom I have worked where
the father was ‘absent’ either physically or emotionally and the mother, a
devout Catholic, was the primary caregiver. Common within this group is that
memories of home and individual relationships with mother were almost
entirely linked to religious motifs.
One patient described walking with his mother in smart clothes to church.
For a period of time he remembers going every day and recalls the pictures,
statues and the rituals which he felt made mother calmer. On the daily excursion
to church mother would hold his hand and they would climb the big steps into
the calm of the church in which there were pictures and statues and rote learning
of the catechism. He remembered feeling confused about the words of ‘Our
Father’ in the Lord’s Prayer, imagining that it was his own father he was praying
to. The words and images around him both at home and in church were very
powerful and instilled a sense of fear. He says, ‘Catholicism came with my
mother’s milk and Father was in Heaven. Going with my mother to church I felt
I had to be what God wanted to please her’. In one session, he recalled an image
of his mother standing in front of the fireplace in a blue dress holding him as a
baby just like the statues he saw in church of the Virgin and the Baby Jesus.
For this man, there was little differentiation between the personal parents
and archetypal images drawn from the Catholic culture surrounding the
family.
Another patient was the eldest of three, who believed that his mission was to
be good and to look after his mother and the younger children. At about 6 years
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 351

old, he remembers going to church with his mother where he had the experience
of feeling ‘poisoned by the pictures’ of the parables and the Stations of the
Cross. Although this patient was a successful businessman, he experienced
feelings of irrational persecution of having been fed and poisoned by pictures
of the ‘Good Samaritan’ and the ‘Parable of the Talents’ and that they
compelled him to always be the ‘Good Samaritan’ and ‘make the most of all
that he had’. On the one hand, these stories which connected to his mother
and the church allowed him to develop helpful attributes; on the other hand,
they entrapped him as he felt compelled to consciously deny his own aggression
and ruthlessness. Superego imperatives which had evolved from this limiting
background made it difficult for him to form real and satisfying relationships
or to hold a real sense of self.
Another patient, who experienced both of her parents as distant, found a sense of
mother via Catholicism and the Holy Mother. Here the maternal archetype
remained in its numinous form and experience was unmediated by a real and
embodied mother. Consequently, the patient’s life and presentation in analysis were
threaded with magical thinking and belief in magical happenings. Her life had no
grounded reality and her relationships were idealistic and overshadowed by fantasy.
Without the mediation of a real, embodied human mother, this patient perceived the
world as a kind of religious ‘fairyland’ where she expected a ‘god-like’ magician
would eventually make everything ‘alright’ and where she would have no agency
or role in unfolding life. Within this world, it seemed that her ego was projected into
an ego ideal of God who would organize and take care of her.
For another patient, where death and loss had been a recurring experience, he
said, ‘the Catholic Church became my mother and my father, there was nothing
else. My father was in heaven and at school there were all these fathers but it
was all a deception, a con, they weren’t him’. This same patient linked aggres-
sion and loss to a numinous and archetypal figure, the shadow side of God
which he called the ‘Flaming Absolute’. He commented:

[The] Flaming Absolute has the power to come in like a dragon and destroy life and
kill all that is good. God is a malevolent God; He’s a hunter who triumphs by death.
This God sits in the shadows and always has the trump card in death. It’s the raw
masculine that just desecrates. Flaming Absolutes just wipe out life and that is what
Catholicism is all about, absolutes and death.

This patient felt compelled to protect his mother from the ‘shadow’ of death
and from his aggression by maintaining a safe haven/heaven. To do so he felt
a need to be a ‘good little man, a manikin’ for his mother in order to protect
her from his angry and aggressive affects. He imagined wearing ‘a straightjacket
and bullet proof vest so as to protect what’s outside from what’s inside and
what’s inside from what’s outside’. At an earlier time in his life, Catholicism
reinforced defensive splitting behaviour; it provided a context which delineated
acceptable feelings and a circumscribed life style and, further, it allowed him to
project unwanted ‘awful’ aspects elsewhere, keeping him (and his mother) ‘safe’
352 Christine Driver

and contained. He commented, ‘Catholicism comes at you and fills what’s inside.
It is the authority and shaped the world. Without it the world was a scrappy place
and there was no way of making sense of it’. Through the structure and orienta-
tion of Catholicism, he believed that by ‘doing the right things’ he could find the
key to happiness and that shadow emotions and experiences would be split off
and banished. He commented, ‘. . .to keep safe I couldn’t let myself feel those
feelings which were sins. Catholicism made me feel they belonged elsewhere so I
could disown them, they were evil’. It had been his hope that the rituals and beliefs
would create a distance from ‘sin’ and provide him with a life free of conflict. He
said, ‘since childhood I have been looking for heaven and I thought there was a
key to finding it. I’ve been looking for a saviour and a conflict free life but in doing
so I haven’t learnt from my own experience that life is not like that’.

Religious motifs in the transference and countertransference

These same motifs and unconscious connections to Catholic beliefs and symbols
were also present in the transference dynamics with these patients. For the
patient in the last example the transference contained the fantasy/phantasy that
women were magical and Holy Mothers who would and could keep him safe.
Alongside this he held the belief that Father was in Heaven and an unconscious
assumption of a holy couple. His confusion around the father was such that the
imago of the personal father was caught up in the image of God the Father. He
equated the father and masculinity with the ‘raw masculine that just desecrates’;
he saw this aspect as the shadow side of God, the ‘Flaming Absolute’, in which
masculinity and aggression were one and the same.
The transference and countertransference dynamics were certainly affected
by the patient’s intertwined personal and religious background. Often I felt
controlled and constrained by these patterns enacted between us; it was as
though bringing in reflections or interpretations that might set off difficult
feelings would be sacrilegious. I imagined that I was being asked to watch in
silent contemplation, like a benevolent Madonna whose mission was to keep
this man safe. I began to understand my countertransference as reflecting an
unconscious complex which connected to a powerful imperative, linked to both
mother and the Catholic Church, to keep disturbing and unwanted affects out
of the picture and to maintain a unified and unseparated bond. Any disturbing
affects were denied and seen as belonging to some external and numinous force.
My interpretations in relation to the transference induced the response, ‘you
are like a magician, you make things feel safe, you make me feel safe, you’re like
a Madonna, you’re solid and safe and make me feel held’. This idealizing type
of response however was double-edged. On the one hand it enabled the
acknowledgement of a need but it also identified that the transference contained
a longing for me to be Mother, Magician, Madonna to make the patient feel
protected, a numinous dimension of the maternal archetype. This dynamic
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 353

and tendency to idealize me/woman also acted as a defence against experiencing

my aggression. My interpretations threatened to break up what was ‘set in
stone’ and disrupt the ‘good feeling’ (Strachey 1934) between us and it was clear
from his responses that he was, in the early stages of the analysis, confused and
agitated by the shadowy and uncomfortable feelings that emerged in relation to
my interpretations and the inevitable disappointments of the therapeutic
relationship.
The patient who spoke of an image of his mother holding him as a baby,
likening this scene to the Virgin and Child, actually incarnated this with me
via the transference. In my countertransference I felt moulded by this image,
as if I were cast and ‘fixed’ as the Virgin Mother, and that to break out of this
and introduce other more earthly perspectives and affects was not only sacrile-
gious but was, for this patient, bringing in something that was dangerous and
did not belong to him. In the transference I, and other women, were archetypal
and numinous mother(s) who knew the ways of the world in a way that seemed
magical to him.
I often felt a sense of frustration with this patient and others in this particular
group as I experienced their relation to their own emotional world as closed off
from thought and that I was the one who had to struggle to think and make
links to what was going on internally and emotionally. Their deep and
undifferentiated dependence on the maternal left me with the sense of being
caught in a deadening coniunctio. Alongside this was my growing awareness
of how much the masculine was marginalized. Aggression, sexuality and
potency were both feared and denied and the phrase that he ‘hates the raw
masculine because that just desecrates’ epitomized this. My countertransference
led me to conclude that this patient group related to all women as if they were the
Holy Mother, like the Virgin, and that the maternal complex was significantly
influenced by numinous expectations. Aggression was left to the shadow and
was kept at a distance as sin and the devil; the darker affects and experiences
were not really accessible for thought or integration and were left, in Bion’s
(1967/1987) terms, as unprocessed beta elements. Without developed alpha
function (ibid), and the capacity for mentalization (Fonagy et al. 2004),
flexibility and play with thinking, these patients were trapped and limited
intrapsychically and interpersonally. Such emotional defences and mental
structures profoundly influenced perception of the self and others and also
the patients’ God-image.

Discussion and implications of the clinical material

Analysis of the clinical material identified that within certain developmental
conditions, especially when the father is ‘absent’ and aggression is split off
and defended against in order to keep mother and infant ‘safe’, it is the mother’s
defences, beliefs, religiosity and parenting, together with the specific tenets of
the religious upbringing, in this case Catholicism, that generate a religious
354 Christine Driver

mental framework which affects perception and shapes and influences the
structure of the psyche and mental functioning. Further, with the failure to
integrate aggression in this kind of maternal psychic structure, loss and death
are experienced as ‘other’, powerful, persecutory and numinous.
With the three patients described above there is a pattern of fusion with the
loving mother archetype and the darker aspects of human functioning are cast
out and defended against. The child is limited to identification with the ‘saviour
child’, a role that requires the expulsion of the ‘dark child’ in order to stay ‘safe’.
Mothers’ deeply held beliefs are enacted at the human level and constrict
the emerging psyches of these patients. The expelled contents are frequently
experienced by the child as an external, numinous and persecutory force. Such
belief systems are then carried into adulthood as feeling-toned complexes when
the ego is unable to become conscious or to integrate these split off aspects of
the psyche. The degree of unconsciousness of the split seems to empower the
autonomy and danger of these complexes and renders such patients vulnerable
to enantiodromia and possession by the darker aspects. The child sexual abuse
crimes and sexual enactments that have been perpetrated by Catholic priests are
disturbing examples of this.
Kalsched’s work on early loss and trauma is also helpful to consider here.
He writes that ‘for the person who has experienced unbearable pain, the
psychological defense of dissociation allows external life to go on but at a
great internal cost’ in which the ‘sequelae of the trauma continue to haunt
the inner world’ via feeling-toned complexes which ‘tend to behave autonomously
as frightening inner ‘beings’, and are represented in dreams as attacking
‘enemies’, vicious animals, etc’ (Kalsched 1999, p. 13). He highlights the
way in which the power of the relationship to the mother influences the
defences which come into operation following infant trauma and reflects that,
‘aggressive, destructive energies—ordinarily available for reality-adaptation
and for healthy defense against toxic not-self objects—are directed back into
the inner world’ (ibid., p. 19) in which the ‘natural processes of symbolic
integration cannot occur’ (ibid., p. 23). Kalsched describes this force as a
figure, ‘that belongs to a more primitive level of ego development and
corresponds to what Jung designated as the ‘archetypal shadow’ or the
“magic demon with mysterious powers”’ (ibid., p. 28). This dynamic reflects
aspects of the pathology of these patients especially as the persecutory object
is experienced in a literal way as a ‘real’ external object particularly in the
case of the dynamic of the ‘Flaming Absolute’. Without the experience of
maternal/parental containment and mediation in relation to these affects, they
are defended against and become projected objects. When conflated with their
religious counterparts, they take on a form of ‘awesome’ magnitude of either
destructive power or a ‘magic demon with mysterious powers’ (Jung 1917/
1926/1943/1990, para. 153). Consequently, these affects are not available
for thought or reflection and the capacity for metabolization remains limited
and undeveloped.
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 355

The clinical maelstrom: the challenge of the shadow

In the clinical work the power of the affects were substantial and palpable,
especially when the patient’s fear, anxiety and fury at the demonic shadow
(e.g., the Flaming Absolute) were forcefully expressed. Holding the tension
between the power of the fantasy and reality was complex and required
sensitive handling. Interpreting the fantasy too quickly would have risked
exposing the patient to raw emotion that such a vulnerable ego was not
equipped to manage. On the other hand, staying with the fantasy too long
risked collusion with the defence which would ultimately cause the patient
to feel betrayed when I moved from a strongly empathic stance to one of a
differentiated other with a separate mind. Navigating a pathway through
this was delicate as the denial of separation made it hard for these patients
to perceive that there was another perspective (another mind) and person
with whom they could engage in dialogue.
I came to realize that the powerful dynamic of the opposites was being
activated and registered through the countertransference. My countertransference
oscillated between a rigid calm and a maelstrom of affect; in consequence I
needed to rigorously engage my own internal process and analytic attitude and
I sought supervisory support to ensure that I could metabolize, contain and think
about what was being projected and defended against. With one patient the
ritual beginning of each session created an illusion of a quiet, contemplative,
almost religious space, separate from the outside world. However, this
atmosphere was soon broken by overwhelming tears, sobs and cries of despair.
Breaking out of the silence these emotions seemed almost disembodied and split
off from reality; this penetrating flow had a powerful effect on me. Gradually
it became apparent that the tears and feelings had two separate, but linked,
aetiologies. At one level they were a reactive response to the loss and grief he
had experienced and was reflected in the comment: ‘I just feel filled with tears,
as though there is no end to them, I’ve lost so much’. On another level, tears
seemed to emerge with a desperate anger at what the patient called the ‘Flaming
Absolute’ and destroyer of life and a ‘God who is a malevolent God. He’s a
hunter who triumphs by death. This God sits in the shadows and always has
the trump card in death’.
Another frequent countertransference affect was that of feeling ‘set in stone’
like the Madonna. This alerted me to affects which were being split off and
put me in touch with the opposite experience which included frustration
and anger, isolation and aloneness, tears and depression, loss and separation
and fear of the powerful and numinous aggressor. These affects were sometimes
hard to bear and I found myself not wanting to stay with them. This alerted
me to the defensive organization of the patients and their inclination to split
as I too felt pulled to move away from what felt like overwhelming emotions.
A turning point for another patient occurred when he made the comment that
‘the world was a scrappy place’. This phrase symbolized the beginning of a
realization of the impact of loss and the way his feelings in relation to his
356 Christine Driver

mother, his partner and others had been denied because they were so difficult to
bear. This enabled the beginning of awareness and integration of difficult and
painful feelings.
The affects defended against revolved primarily around loss, separation and
aggression and resulted in an incapacity to hold a sense of ‘other’ or develop
a capacity for dialogue (internal or external) in relation to them. The lack of a
real and available ‘other’ in infancy results in a failure to imagine a sense of
intercourse between a real parental couple. My countertransference experience
of feeling ‘set in stone’ and ‘like the Madonna’ also reflected this, making it hard
to have a dialogue with myself, let alone the patient. It highlighted the archetypal
nature of the parental couple and how these imagos were also conflated
with their numinous and religious counterparts that were reflected via Catholic
imagery. The difficulty of generating dialogue within the therapy resonated with
the patient’s terrible dilemma and we were at risk of a collusive transference
enactment if we both were to stay caught in the rigid defensive system. My
gradual introduction of, and reflection on, the shadow as it emerged in the
therapeutic relationship helped to begin the development of the patient’s
capacities for metabolization and the development of a sturdier and more
robust ego structure.
Working with such defensive structures analytically requires an ongoing
dialogue within the therapeutic relationship but not necessarily direct transference
interpretations. My experience has been that in the early stages of the work
transference interpretations have little real impact. This is because these
patients have little or no internal separation, internal dialogue or differentiation
between self and other and, in addition, there is a massive defence against
experiencing anything that puts them in touch with disturbing emotions. As a
result interpretations need to aim to generate a reflective capacity within the
patient so that they develop an internal separation and dialogue between ego
and self, fantasy and reality. In the early stages of the work the ‘transference
interpretations’ needed to take place internally within myself until a sense of self
and other could be achieved and tolerated by the patient. Integration occurred
through the slow mediation of the affects via dialogue and the uncovering of the
feelings of loss, separation and aggression and the associated affects such as grief,
anger, despair, isolation, etc.
My struggle with a dialogue within myself also reflected the struggle of the
patient to experience a sense of twoness and a sense of a separate ‘other’.
Generating dialogue with these patients enabled them to gradually experience
two people in the room rather than one. In confronting the reality of matter,
such as separation and loss (which became real around breaks) and aggression
(when one patient tipped into depression and blamed me), the negative transference
and unwanted emotions were powerfully evoked and became more accessible for
thought and reflection because they were based in the real relationship with me
and not projected on to a numinous other. In this dynamic I became what the
patient did not want me to be; I was not the perfect Madonna, and this catapulted
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 357

him into experiences of loss. Here we were both thrown into the struggle with the
shadow and, by default, the reality of life and the reality of matter.
The challenge is to enable these patients to feel that separation is not destructive
and that with space in between there can be a creative coupling, a creative
dialogue, rather than an assumption that closeness leads to merger and loss of a
sense of self in order to avoid unbearable anxiety and unbearable feelings. In
addition the therapeutic relationship has to bear the press of archetypal primitive
affects expressed through religious beliefs firmly held by the patients. The central
clinical challenge revolves around the differentiation of self and other, between
therapist and patient. With these patients the combination of a missing father
and a merger with the mother leads to a deadening of the self (Seligman 1985)
and the failure to imagine a couple (Birksted-Breen 1996). This prevents the
necessary space for the tension of opposites and the intercourse of a creative
couple. The challenge in the therapeutic relationship is persevering through
the ‘deadness’ towards a sense of a creative couple. Generating curiosity in the
therapeutic dyad enlivens interest in the value of what is different and not yet
known. Through a long, slow process, one patient developed a sense of curiosity
about the unknown parts of himself and the unknown in the other. As a result, the
other was no longer persecutory and powerful; rather this differentiated other
became a separate individual with whom dialogue was possible.

Implications in relation to Jung’s work on the Trinity and Quaternity

In considering these issues there are clear implications in relation to Jung’s work
on the Trinity (Jung 1942/1948/1991). In Jung’s construction of the Quaternity
the dynamic that was excluded from the Christian Trinitarian framework of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit was that of the ‘dark’ son. Jung proposes that a
more logical psychological dynamic is between the father, son and the ‘dark’
son (ibid.) or the ‘dark emanation’ in which the dynamics of the opposites
and the ‘unspeakable conflict posited by the duality’ (ibid., para. 258) activates
the transcendent function (Jung 1916/1957/1991). For Jung the transcendent
function resolves this duality via a ‘fourth principle’ of separation, thought,
imagination, actualization and spirit and transcends the opposites and results
in a Quaternity.
One sees this argument most clearly when Jung writes about the Quaternity
(ibid.) but also in a more complex form when he draws a sketch of ‘interlocking
quaternios’ in a letter to White in 1948 (Lammers & Cunningham 2007,
p. 123). In this correspondence complex arguments are evident in a difficult
exchange between Father White and Jung. White accuses Jung of falling into
‘gnostic dualism’, of operating ‘outside his own orbit’ and that he misunder-
stands the metaphysics ‘which account for the phenomena’ (ibid., pp. 140/141).
Jung vigorously rebuts this in a letter written in December 1949 (ibid., p. 140)
and claims that he makes no metaphysical assertions but is considering only the
358 Christine Driver

psychological in which ‘good and evil are psychological relativities’ and ‘should not
be projected upon a transcendent being’ (ibid., p. 143). But nevertheless his paper
on the Trinity, his development of the Quaternity (Jung, 1942/1948/1991), and
the letters to White (Lammers & Cunningham 2007) certainly could be read
as trying to correct theology and this seems to be the way in which White
experiences it.
The argument that was generated between Jung and White characterized two
different perspectives: one psychological and the other theological. However, I
believe that the theological does link to the psychological as evident in the clinical
material cited above. These examples illustrate the way in which psychological
development is influenced by how emotional life is mediated and experienced
within a religious upbringing through the creeds and dogmas of Catholicism.
Jung (1942/1948/1991) alludes to this when he comments that ‘the person’s
unconscious is gripped by the Catholic form no matter how weak his faith may
be’ (para. 285). Certainly this was evident with the patients described above
whose exposure to archetypal Catholic religious observances and belief systems
conjoined with personal dynamics related to a lack of differentiation from mother
and the absence of father.

Developing the model of the quaternity

It seems clear that Jung has mapped the shadow, the opposites and the struggle
with the father on to the Trinity. What he does not do is consider the impact of
the symbol of the Trinity on the psyche for individuals brought up within
Catholic culture. What Jung also overlooks is the power of the image of the
Virgin Mary in Catholic worship and the impact on the psyche for an individual
brought up within such a context.
Unfortunately, Jung (1942/1948/1991) conflates and condenses the ‘dark’ son,
evil, matter, the Virgin Mary and the maternal on to the fourth point of the
quaternity rather than separating them in order to consider the various and
different dynamics which need to be considered. Bishop (2002) believes that Jung
veered between two versions of the fourth in the quaternity, one linked to the
‘female element’ or Virgin Mary, the other to the ‘shadow in the form of the devil’
(ibid., p. 155). In The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (Jung 1951/1987)
Jung does expand his ideas and thinking in relation to the quaternity in detail
and proposes a series of quaternities with higher and lower forms and comments
that ‘just as man culminates above in the idea of a “light” and good God, so he
rests below on a dark and evil principle, traditionally described as the devil or as
the serpent that personifies Adam’s disobedience’ (ibid., para. 386).
Not content with this vertical schema, Jung rearranges it into a circular
uroboros in which there is a ‘stronger tension between anthropos-rotundum
and serpens and a lesser tension between homo and lapis on the other’ (ibid.,
para. 391). His aim, as he points out, is that ‘we can no longer conceive of a psyche
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 359

that is oriented exclusively upwards and that is not balanced by an equally strong
consciousness of the lower man’ (ibid., para. 402). Subsequently Jung pursued this
further in Answer to Job (Jung 1952/1991) which is where, according to Stein
(1985), Jung considered ‘God’s tragic contradictoriness with evil and good mixed
together’ (ibid., p. 162). Stein goes on to comment that this is ‘Jung’s most
intensely emotional and personal psychotherapeutic confrontation with biblical
Christian tradition’ (ibid.).
Within the clinical work described, however, it is the role of the feminine
which is crucial and Jung comments in Symbols of Transformation (Jung
1911-1912/1952/1981a) that ‘the libido which builds up religious structures
regresses in the last analysis to the mother, and thus represents the real bond
through which we are connected with our origins’ (ibid., para. 669). This
comment has particular relevance to the clinical work under consideration
and suggests the complex interrelationship between the maternal and religious
structures and symbols. However, in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche
(Jung 1951/1987) and Answer to Job (Jung 1952/1991) Jung focuses largely on
the dynamics with the Father although he does examine the role of the feminine
in the Old and New Testament and comments on how ‘Mary is elevated to
the status of a goddess and consequently loses something of her humanity’ (ibid.,
para. 626). In Mysterium Coniunctionis (Jung 1955/1956/1981) Jung goes on to
consider the ‘multi-natured’ aspect of Luna (ibid., para. 218), the medieval
importance of the Virgin Mary as mediator and the introduction of the dogma of
the Assumption in 1950 as ‘taking up not only of the soul but of the body of Mary
into the Trinity’ (ibid., para. 237) with a resulting quaternity of Holy Ghost (Dove),
God the Father, Christ and Mary (ibid.). Here, and in Answer to Job (Jung 1952/1991)
and The Symbolic Life (Jung 1977/1993), we see Jung beginning to explore in
much more detail the role and significance of the feminine, especially in relation
to her numinous forms and in particular the role of the Virgin Mary and the
maternal. Jung, at the end of his life, was therefore beginning to grapple with the
dynamics of the feminine in religion but tended to remain in the position of
analysing the religious symbols rather than considering the impact and effect that
these symbols have on the psyche in terms of what they contain and what they omit.
In the exploration of this clinical work, the influence of the interaction of the
psyche with religious symbols is central but the clinical material demonstrates
that there are a number of overlapping quaternios in which the fourth point relates
to the negative and ‘dark’ aspect of the earthly and numinous dimensions of child,
mother, father and reality. What is also clearly evident for this patient group is that it
is the relationship to the mother which is significant in determining how the God
image is perceived. In parallel to this the Catholic religious symbols, creeds and
dogmas influence perception and the feeling-toned complexes.
As a consequence, an alternative representation of Jung’s idea of the quaternity is
proposed and the diagram below represents the multidimensional nature of
overlapping dynamics. Each aspect has its opposite, the psyche/soul being the
mediating factor between the opposites and the spirit being the point of separation,
360 Christine Driver

actualization and thought within and through each. Perception of the God-image
occurs within and through the axis of the relationship with the parents initiated
via the relationship with the mother.

This diagram builds on Jung’s ideas around the quaternity and the essential
dynamics between the opposites of the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ sides of the psyche.
This diagram also proposes the dynamics between the psyche/soul and the
spirit/self in conjunction with the dynamics of the child, the maternal and paternal
that are influenced by the God image. In particular this clinical study identifies
the way in which the child’s experience of religion and religious beliefs is
mediated via the initial and primary relationship with the mother and that it
is the nature of her beliefs alongside that of the actual belief systems, dogmas
and creeds that affect the way in which the psyche develops and what can,
or cannot, be integrated. The literal absence of the personal father leaves the
door open for such individuals to be powerfully affected by archetypal images
and beliefs related to God the Father.
The clinical work illustrates the way in which the psyche sits at a fulcrum point
between the tension of the opposites and significantly between the ‘light’ and
‘dark’ sides of matter and the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ sides of the parental archetypes
and imagos in which it is the psyche, via the ego, that is required to deal with
the reality of matter and physical and spiritual experience. Jung uses the word
psyche as meaning the ‘totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as
unconscious’ (Jung 1921/1989, para. 797) and soul as reflecting the ‘moving
force, that is, life force’ (Jung 1931/1987, para. 663) and ‘personality’ (Jung
1921/1989, para. 797) in its fullest sense. Jung saw spirit as the ‘non-material . . .
incorporeal . . . and the opposite of matter’ (Samuels et al. 1986, p. 140)
which ‘gives meaning to life and the possibilities of its greatest development
(Jung, 1926/1987, para. 648). Later, in his explorations of the God-image, Jung
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 361

connected spirit to his concept of the Self and the God-image and made the
interesting observation that ‘the God-image is immediately related to, or identical
with, the self, and everything that happens to the God-image has an effect on the
latter’ (Jung, 1951/1989, para. 170). It is interesting that in Jung’s reflections on
the ‘problem of the fourth’ he largely focuses on religious symbols and seems to veer
away from exploring one of the primary struggles of life, the struggle with the
‘reality of matter’ especially in relation to separation and loss.
What Jung seemed to be aiming for in his work in Aion (Jung 1951/1989)
was a formulation which conveyed the complexity of life. The dilemma in
trying to put this into diagrammatic form is that a diagram can only
represent such a complexity but can never fully capture it because life and
nature are affected by so many overlapping dimensions. What the above
diagram does identify, however, is a key aspect of depth psychology namely
the interactive dynamics within the psyche. Samuels (1989) reflects this when
he comments ‘depth psychology is less about “things” than about the relations
between things, and, ultimately, about the relations between sets of relations’
(ibid., p. 9).
With the patients discussed here, their ‘reality’ was skewed towards the ‘light’
reality of matter and the ‘light’ reality of the parental archetypes and the
numinous leaving ‘dark’ reality excluded and externalized. This defensive
dynamic denied the tension of the opposites and resulted in a diminished
capacity within the psyche and a diminished capacity to deal with life and its
complexity. As one patient commented later in the analytic work:

I always felt that the spiritual world was completely separate from the physical world.
I never imagined they might interact. That explains why I could never understand
death and why I felt on the edge of relationships. I have been viewing things from
the spiritual world and Catholicism and not from the physical.

What this identifies, and the above diagram illustrates, is that the psyche/soul
has to struggle with the reality of matter and life and death and that it is also
the point at which the ego within the psyche can get pulled into identifying with
or existing within the ‘light’ or ‘dark’ poles. The psyche/soul via the ego therefore
has to deal with the tension of the opposites between the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ sides
but also between the reality of matter, the embodied and numinous aspects of
the archetypes, the personal and collective unconscious and the collective
external world, in this case dominated by Catholicism.

Conclusion
From the work with these patients, it can be concluded that what religious belief
systems ‘do’, especially when experienced from infancy via the maternal, is
influence and determine the development of the psyche. From a neuroscience
perspective one could postulate that they influence and determine the neural
362 Christine Driver

pathways within the brain and consequently affect mental functioning. This is
possibly because religious beliefs are internalized as moral and psychological
imperatives and partly because the narratives, creeds and dogmas resonate
with the internal dynamics and conflicts of the developing psyche resulting in
a feed-back loop between the personal and the collective. This feed-back loop
is powerful when internal conflicts and dynamics are ruled by and interrelate
with religious creeds and dogmas. Within, for example, a Catholic upbringing,
religion and psychology conflate to form scaffolding within the psyche which
creates a psycho-religious mindset in which experience is viewed as having a
primarily religious source and aetiology.
Religion offers the individual a way to explain real and existential dilemmas
and internal fears and anxieties in relation to life and death. These belief
systems provide a narrative about how the world was created, propose a moral
code and give substance and meaning to life, death and life after death. We
cannot carry out clinical work without considering the impact of the collective
and religion is no exception because it shapes and informs what is internalized
by the individual. For these patients and those who have been brought up
within a specific religious framework, there is exposure from birth to a structure
which explains and formulates a worldview and this has implications for
psychological and moral development. What this study demonstrates is
that religion and psychology cannot be separated because religions a structure
about the fundamental questions of life and death and a powerful
framework on to which psychological motifs adhere, interrelate and structure
the mind.

TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT

A travers une série de vignettes cliniques, cet article considère l’impact des croyances
religieuses, précisément catholiques romaines, sur la psyché et le développement de l’esprit;
l’attention sera portée sur les influences du mélange des croyances maternelles avec un
système de croyance catholique lorsque la perte ou l’absence de père est le facteur primaire.
Plus loin, il sera montré que la forme humaine et personnelle de l’ombre, telles que les
émotions agressives et conflictuelles vis à vis du père et de la mère, lorsqu’elles sont clivées
par la psyché, rejoignent le numineux collectif et les aspects religieux du « côté sombre » de
la représentation de Dieu, et aboutissent à des symptômes de « persécution » religieuses. Cela
a un effet débilitant sur la personnalité en développement, la laissant en proie aux peurs, aux
angoisses, et à un vécu de noyaux psychotiques, quand il y a une ombre numineuse
persécutrice en arrière-plan qui affecte et limite le développement de l’individu. Les implica-
tions et découvertes retirées des vignettes cliniques sont utilisées pour considérer l’impact
d’une interrelation et d’une confluence entre certains aspects de la psyché et les croyances
religieuses. Le travail de Jung sur la Trinité et « la question du quatre » (Jung 1942/1948)
est aussi reconsidérée en lien avec le rôle du féminin, le maternel et la « réalité de la matière ».
Un schéma des différents niveaux de la quaternité est utilisé pour élaborer et élargir le
concept de Jung.
The ‘Holy Mother’ and the shadow: revisiting the quaternity 363

Mit Hilfe einiger klinischer Vignetten wird in diesem Artikel die Auswirkung religiösen
Glaubens, speziell des römisch-katholischen, auf die Psyche und die Entwicklung des
Geistes betrachtet. Ein besonderer Fokus richtet sich dabei auf die Einflüsse der
Verbindung maternalen Glaubens mit dem katholischen Glaubenssystem in den Fällen,
in denen der Verlust oder die Abwesenheit des Vaters einen vorrangigen Faktor bildet.
Desweiteren wird aufgezeigt, daß sich die persönliche und menschliche Ausprägung
des Schattens, wie etwa als konflikthafte und aggressive Emotionen in den Beziehungen
zu Mutter und Vater, wenn sie durch die Psyche abgespalten wird, mit den numinosen
und religiösen Aspekten der ’dunklen Seite’ der Gottesrepräsentanz verbindet, und in
’religiöse’ verfolgende Symptomen resultiert. Dies hat einen schwächenden Effekt auf
die sich bildende Persönlichkeit, machen sie anfällig für Furcht, Ängstlichkeiten und
psychotische Erfahrungsbereiche insoweit sich ein numinoser verfolgender Schatten
im Hintergrund befindet, der die individuelle Entwicklung beeinflußt und begrenzt.
Die aus den klinischen Vignetten gezogenen Implikationen und Befunde werden
verwandt, um die Wirkung einer gegenseitigen Beziehung und Verschmelzung von
Aspekten der Psyche und religiösem Glauben zu betrachten. Jungs Arbeit über die
Dreieinigkeit und des ’Problems des Vierten’ (Jung 1942/1948) wird überdacht auch
in Bezug auf die Rolle des Weiblichen, das Maternale und die ’Realität des Faktischen’.
Um Jungs Konzept zu verdeutlichen und weiterzuentwickeln wird ein Diagramm der
vielfachen Ebenen der Quaternität herangezogen.

Mediante una serie di vignette cliniche, in questo scritto si prende in considerazione

l’impatto del credo religioso, specificamente del Cattolicesimo Romano, sulla psiche e sullo
sviluppo della mente; con particolare attenzione alle influenze della fusione dei credi
materni con un sistema di credi Cattolici laddove la perdita o l’assenza del padre è un fattore
primario. Si mostrerà inoltre che la forma personale e umana dell’ombra, come emozioni
conflittuali e aggressive nei confronti della madre e del padre, se scissa dalla psiche, si fonde
con il numinoso collettivo e con gli aspetti religiosi del ‘lato oscuro’ della rappresentazione
di Dio e dà vita a sintomi religiosi persecutori. Ciò ha un effetto debilitante sulla personalità
emergente lasciandola in preda a paure, ansie e contenitori psicotici di esperienze quando
nello sfondo c’è un’ombra persecutoria numinosa che influenza e limita lo sviluppo
dell’individuo. Le implicazioni e le scoperte tratte dalle vignette cliniche vengono usate
per considerare l’impatto dell’interrelazione e della confusione tra aspetti della psiche e credi
religiosi. Viene anche riconsiderato il lavoro di Jung sulla Trinità e sul ‘problema del quarto’
(Jung 1942/1948) in relazione al ruolo del femminile, del materno e della ‘realtà della
materia’. Viene utilizzato un diagramma dei molteplici livelli della quaternità per elaborare
e ampliare il concetto di Jung.

На примере нескольких клинических виньеток в статье рассматривается влияние

религиозных убеждений, особенно римского католицизма, на психику и развитие сознания;
в частности, делается фокус на влиянии соединения материнских верований с католической
системой веры в тех случаях, когда утрата или отсутствие отца является первичным
364 Christine Driver

фактором. В работе будет показано, что личные и человеческие формы тени, например,
конфликтные и агрессивные эмоции по отношению к матери и отцу, будучи отщепленными
в психике, сливаются с коллективными нуминозными и религиозными аспектами «темной
стороны» репрезентации Бога и становятся «религиозными» преследующими симптомами.
Это ослабляет проявляющуюся личность, делая ее подверженной страхам, тревогам и
психотическим переживаниям, а нуминозная преследующая тень, лежащая в основе этого,
воздействует на индивидуальное развитие и ограничивает его. Выводы и находки,
полученные в случаях, проиллюстрированных клиническими виньетками, используются
для размышления о том, каково воздействие взаимоотношений и объединений между
аспектами психики и религиозными верованиями. Работа Юнга о Троице и «проблеме
четырех» (Юнг 1942/1948) рассматривается с точки зрения роли женственного,
материнского и «реальности материи». Для разработки и расширения концепции Юнга
используется диаграмма многоуровневой четверичности.

Por medio de una serie de viñetas clínicas, este trabajo considera el impacto de las creencias
religiosa, específicamente del catolicismo, en la psique y el desarrollo de la mente; en particu-
lar, se focalizará en las influencias de la anexión de certidumbres maternales con un sistema de
creencias católicas cuando la pérdida o la ausencia del padre representan un factor primario.
Aún más, se mostrará que la forma personal y humana de la sombra, como conflictiva y las
emociones agresivas en relación con la madre y el padre, cuando son disociadas de la psique,
confluyen en el colectivo integrándose a los aspectos sobrenaturales y religiosos del ‘lado
oscuro’ de la imago de Dios y como resultado surgen síntomas persecutorios de carácter
‘religioso’. Esto tiene un efecto debilitante en la personalidad emergente dejándola propensa
a sentir temores, ansiedades y experiencias de contenido psicótico cuando hay una sombra
persecutoria sobrenatural en la base que afecta y limita el desarrollo del individuo. Las
implicaciones y las conclusiones extraídas de las viñetas clínicas son utilizadas para considerar
el impacto de la interrelación y la anexión entre aspectos de la psique y las creencias religiosas.
El trabajo de Jung sobre la Trinidad y ’el problema del cuarto’ (Jung 1942/1948) también es
estudiado en relación con el papel de lo femenino, lo maternal y lo ‘de la realidad de la
materia’ asunto’. Se usa un diagrama de los múltiples niveles de la Cuaternidad para elaborar
y expandir el concepto de Jung.

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[MS first received March 2012; final version March 2013]