Only when her ego is firmly rooted in her own feminine feeling can a woman be released from her compulsive behavior.
Esther Harding, referring to the ego complex preceding the formation of a conscious ego, writes:
Where the ego is inadequately developed in modern adults and is not made conscious, we find that the ego complex remains in the unconscious and functions from there.
In consciousness an individual representing this level of development may be conspicuously lacking in that concentration and centredness which is characteristic of the person with more conscious ego development; yet egotism and will to power, of which the unevolved person is unaware, may function nonetheless and produce their inevitable effects on all with whom he comes in contact. . . .
[Where] egotism and self-will are in the unconscious. . . they manifest themselves in somatic, that is, in pre-psychological form.
When the ego comes to consciousness and the individual becomes aware of himself as I, the reaction to difficulties or obstructions will no longer appear in physical form as symptoms but will be recognized in consciousness as emotions.
That is to say, the reaction will be a psychological one. . . .
The emergence of the ego from the unconscious brings with it a new problem, the problem of the will to power.
If a woman is to be freed of neurotic symptoms she must renounce unconscious methods of getting her own way, and face life more directly, thus gaining real power over both herself and her environment.
If in later life she has mastered her hunger drive by ego control, she may assume that she can control her fate herself.
But that ego may in fact be very weak, because it has been built by cutting herself off from the mainstream of life through severe dieting.
It is built on negative rather than positive need. In a real life crisis, such an ego may fail to operate because she does not know consciously what her own needs are.
[…] An ego which sets itself up against Fate is attempting to usurp the power of the Self; it swings from light to dark, from inflation to depression.
Only when her ego is firmly rooted in her own feminine feeling can a woman be released from her compulsive behavior. ~Marion Woodman, The Owl was a Baker’s Daughter, Page 33
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