“Let Medusa come, that we may change him into stone.” Inferno IX, 52. (1941).
This note on the reconstruction of the symbolism of the Medusa myth was suggested by material which appeared in the course of routine analytic work. The unexpected emergence of this material led to an investigation of the literature on the subject and to considerations on the unconscious significance of the Medusa story both in mythology and in the individual.
A young man with a schizoid obsessional neurosis, while under analysis related that for years he had had recurrent: fantasies of seeing his mother naked and her genitalia and pubic hair were very prominent. In the midst of this fantasy he would experience a feeling that he was compulsively gazing at his mother and during this time, too, he fantasied that his body became rigid and immovable. The affective reaction associated with this fantasy consisted of a mixture of love, disgust and hate.
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