The Seba library treats Cutting in 9 passages, across 5 authors (including Edinger, Edward F., Tozzi, Chiara, McGilchrist, Iain).
The creation of consciousness requires that new contents be carved out of the unconscious… Swords, knives, and sharp cutting edges of all kinds belong to the symbolism of separatio.
Edinger argues that cutting — as Logos-Cutter and as symbolic sharp edge — is the primary alchemical operation of separatio, the act by which consciousness differentiates itself from the unconscious.
, Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, 1985thesis
cutting himself is a way of expressing certain things, and I urge him not to do it since he could try to express those things here, during the session. It seems to work and, in the following months, the episodes decrease in frequency until they disappear.
Tozzi presents self-cutting as a symptomatic semiotic act — first to feel, then for pleasure — that active imagination within the therapeutic frame can progressively replace.
, Active Imagination in Theory, Practice and Training, 2017thesis
Cutting J & Dunne F, ‘Subjective experience of schizophrenia’… Cutting J & Murphy D, ‘Preference for denotative as opposed to connotative meanings in schizophrenics’
McGilchrist cites John Cutting’s psychopathological research as authoritative on schizophrenic subjectivity, time-experience, and the denotative narrowing characteristic of psychosis.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
Cutting J & Dunne F, ‘Subjective experience of schizophrenia’… Cutting J & Murphy D, ‘Preference for denotative as opposed to connotative meanings in schizophrenics’
Parallel citation cluster reinforcing John Cutting’s role as a key scholarly voice on schizophrenic phenomenology and its relation to denotative versus connotative meaning.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
Cutting & Silzer 1990.
McGilchrist references Cutting and Silzer’s work on the psychopathology of time in brain disease and schizophrenia as evidence for hemispheric distinctions in temporal experience.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
Cutting & Silzer 1990.
Duplicate citation of Cutting and Silzer establishing their psychopathological research on time as a supporting reference within the divided-brain argument.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
there was the concept of the Jung sapling being pruned with an ax in order to grow more full… In ancient women’s religion, this sort of ax innately belongs to the Goddess, not to the father.
Estés reads ritual cutting (pruning with an ax) as a sacred feminine act of psychic initiation and renewal, repositioning the cutting instrument within matriarchal religious symbolism rather than patriarchal dismemberment.
, Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild, 2017supporting
I work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until—flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground.
Zhuangzi’s Cook Ding parable presents masterful cutting as alignment with natural structure (Tao), offering a non-Western analogue to the logos of differentiation without violence.
, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, 2013aside
if they cut off his feet, they could dispose of him easily. Accordingly, they cut off his feet and sold him in the state of Qi.
Zhuangzi employs literal mutilation-cutting as a narrative device illustrating how bodily diminishment can paradoxically enable survival and social integration.
, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, 2013aside