Achilles Complex
This evening I am posting an image of my (still a little wet) painting, Achilles Complex . It will be exhibited for sale in my studio during the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour. When Thetis became convinced that her son Achilles would die if drafted into war with Troy she hid him on the island of Scyros, disguised as a girl, among the daughters of Lycomedes. (Imagine a young Brad Pitt in a dress.) The Roman poet Statius wrote about the repressed Achilles, his sexual awakening among his “sisters” and the subsequent end to his feminine masquerade by Ulysses in his poem “The Achilleid.” Based on this mythic evidence psychiatrist Demetrian Delias suggests that the violence and aggression that the adult Achilles manifests might be traced to trauma that began during this pre-Oedipal period. The person who suffers from an Achilles Complex is dominated by sadistic, murderous impulses that may be turned against the self or may ultimately be enacted against others. Achilles ...