Learning from Experience

3 Myth

Models of Reality

MYTH IS BION'S TERM for metaphor. They are interchangeable. What I like about the term myth is that it recognizes the power and the scope of the metaphor. Whole civilizations are captured within the myth. Whatever we call them, these metaphors become windows onto our realities and show us how these realities fit together; how they are configured. I call these configurations patterns (Charles, 2002a). Once you get away from the particulars and down to the level of structure, you start to see something really basic; something profoundly, awesomely simple at play.

A good example is Freud's (1900) conception of the Oedipus complex. In my early encounters with the idea of the Oedipus complex, it always seemed kind of flat ...