Archetypal Grief: Slavery’s Legacy of Intergenerational Child Loss

175 Pages·2018·1.45 MB·English

by  Fanny Brewster

“Fanny Brewster throws open the doors of the slave quarters, casts light on the
face of unbearable grief, rage and intergenerational trauma. She insists we
remember what the culture, and indeed, Depth Psychology, has preferred to
forget—the appalling cruelty and systemic evil of American slavery during the
400 years of the African Holocaust, how its social and psychological legacy
shapes our world to this day.
The Ancestors speak to Brewster, especially ‘mothering slaves’—women forced
to be ‘breeders,’ whose labor in childbirth and in the cotton fields brought them
no joy, no increase, no profit. Their bodies were not their own; they were used
and abused. Their children were not their own; they were ripped from their
breasts. Their families were not their own; they were torn apart. They tell
Motherline stories from hell.
Archetypal Grief is strong medicine for the soul. If your heart is open to sorrow,
to horror, if your mind is open to seeing through cultural complexes and denial, if
your ears are open to ‘the voice of the Other,’ if you long for healing, if you want
to ‘be woke,’ this book is for you.”
—Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, author of The Motherline:
Every Woman’s Journey to Find Her Female
Roots and The Rabbi, the Goddesss and Jung: Getting the Word from Within
“Dr. Brewster advances the argument that we, ‘both whites and blacks,’ are
haunted by the ‘not telling’ of the historical slave stories and their continuing
archetypal manifestations. White America, in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
words, is ‘poisoned to its soul’ by racism, and we are equally haunted by not
listening to our black sisters and brothers, past and present. Such listening
would be one way to help purge our souls of racism’s poison through empa-
thetic witnessing, a form of archetypal apology, if you will. To do so, we need to
counter white fragility by having the strength to turn the pages of books like
Archetypal Grief, and not look away from the anguish and anger therein, nor
deny our ancestors’ roles in their genesis and the archetypal guilt we carry in our
DNA as well.”
—Jennifer Leigh Selig, PhD, author of Integration:
The Psychology and Mythology of Martin Luther
King, Jr. and His (Unfinished) Therapy With the Soul of America
“You birth a child and they die because you are malnourished. You birth a child
knowing they are the product of a rape. You birth a child and at adolescence they
aremaimed,torturedorfloggedtodeath. Youbirthachildandtheyaretornfrom
your arms and sold you know not where.
This is the archetypal legacy of the African Holocaust explored by Jungian ana-
lyst Dr. Fanny Brewster who challenges us to become conscious of the grief,
sorrow, rage as well as the strength and resilience experienced and embedded in
the emotional DNA of those ‘mothering slaves’ and handed down to their descen-
dants. The trauma of this legacy affects all and is embedded in all our psyches.
Bring your heart and your soul, your emotions as well as your intellect as you
read this searing, scholarly work.”
—Christine M. Chao, PhD, clinical psychologist,
diplomate Jungian analyst, USA
“FannyBrewsterprovidesanecessaryexplorationoftheimpactonAfrican-Americans
of a devastating evil of slavery, the tearing of children away from their mothers. She
writeswithpassionandpower,usingthelensofJungianarchetypesinconjunctionwith
herprofoundunderstandingofAfrican-Americanculture,todecipherthecomplexities
ofslavery’saftermath.Consideringpast,future,andspiritualintegrity,sheleadsustoan
understandingoffeelingsthatstillreverberate,archetypalgriefasasteady-state,perva-
siveelementoveralifetime,withinacultureofresilienceandsurvival.”
—Merle Molofsky, NCPsyA, LP, psychoanalyst, faculty member and Advisory
Board, Harlem Family Institute, USA; faculty member, NPAP
ARCHETYPAL GRIEF
Archetypal Grief: Slavery’s Legacy of Intergenerational Child Loss is a powerful explora-
tion of the intergenerational psychological effects of child loss as experienced by
women held in slavery in the Americas and of its ongoing effects in contemporary
society. It presents the concept of archetypal grief in African American women:
cultural trauma so deeply wounding that it spans generations.
Calling on Jungian psychology as well as neuroscience and attachment theory,
Fanny Brewster explores the psychological lives of enslaved women using their
own narratives and those of their descendants, and discusses the stories of mother-
ing slaves with reference to their physical and emotional experiences. The broader
context of slavery and the conditions leading to the development of archetypal
grief are examined, with topics including the visibility/invisibility of the African
femalebody,thearchetypeofthemother,stereotypesaboutblackwomen,andthe
significance of rites of passage. The discussion is placed in the context of con-
temporary America and the economic, educational, spiritual and political legacy of
slavery.
Archetypal Grief will be an important work for academics and students of Jungian
and post-Jungian studies, archetypal and depth psychology, archetypal studies,
feminine psychology, women’s studies, the history of slavery, African American
history, African diaspora studies and sociology. It will also be of interest to analy-
tical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists in practice and in training.
Fanny Brewster, PhD, is a Jungian analyst and Professor at Pacifica Graduate
Institute,USA.Sheis theauthorof African Americans andJungianPsychology: Leaving
the Shadows (Routledge, 2017).
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ARCHETYPAL GRIEF
’
Slavery s Legacy of Intergenerational
Child Loss
Fanny Brewster
Firstpublished2019
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2019FannyBrewster
TherightofFannyBrewstertobeidentifiedastheauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyherinaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,Designs
andPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinany
informationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthe
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Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered
trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintentto
infringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Names:Brewster,Fanny,author.
Title:Archetypalgrief:slavery’slegacyofintergenerationalchildloss/Fanny
Brewster.
Description:1Edition.|NewYork:Routledge,2019.
Identifiers:LCCN2018019022|ISBN9780415789059(hardback)|ISBN
9780415789066(pbk.)|ISBN9781315222998(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Loss(Psychology)--UnitedStates--History.|Motherand
child--UnitedStates--History.|Separationanxiety--UnitedStates--History.|
Slavery--UnitedStates--History.|Jungianpsychology--UnitedStates--History.
Classification:LCCBF575.D35B742019|DDC155.9/3--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2018019022
ISBN:978-0-415-78905-9(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-78906-6(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-22299-8(ebk)
TypesetinBembo
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Dedicated to my Mother and Foremothers
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements x
Foreword xii
Introduction xx
1 Archetypes of the collective unconscious 1
2 The mother archetype 8
3 Rites of passage: Life and death 18
4 Slavery as archetype and the prayer of freedom 28
5 Mothering slave and the intergenerational orphan 41
6 African Americans and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Stages of grief 54
7 Grief as anger 68
8 Archetypal grief 82
9 Mother, daughter, son 96
10 The female Africanist body 110
11 Mirror as symbol 120
12 Influencing the archetype 127
Summary 134
References 139
Index 143