Category: Complexes
The Cassandra complex - Denial of the body's truth
Author: Denise Grobbelaar
Date Published: 2025-11-20 17:51:00
The body as a vessel of silenced truth finds a potent metaphor in the Greek myth of Cassandra, the prophetess whose true visions were condemned to disbelief. Her story mirrors the tension between inner knowing and outer invalidation, when intuitive or embodied insight is dismissed by consciousness or the collective.
The trauma complex & dissociation
Author: Denise Grobbelaar
Date Published: 2025-02-06 18:56:55
Marcus West describes the trauma complex as a deeply ingrained, unconscious psychological structure formed in response to early relational trauma. When the natural multiplicity of self-states becomes fragmented, the psyche splits, creating a dissociated part of the self that remains frozen in the emotional and physiological state of the trauma, while other aspects are exiled to avoid overwhelming distress.
Complexes: Filters of reality
Author: Denise Grobbelaar
Date Published: 2023-06-13 16:45:45
A complex can’t be reasoned with. When it is activated, it will play out the dynamics of its programming in the world. There is no objective reality from the perspective of a complex. It operates from the original wounding...
Mother: Archetype & Complex
Author: Denise Grobbelaar
Date Published: 2021-07-07 02:33:15
The mother’s impact on her children can be enlivening or deadening as reflected in the positive and negative mother complexes. Awareness of how mother images live within is us integral to becoming more conscious.
Father: Archetype & Complex
Author: Denise Grobbelaar
Date Published: 2021-06-02 02:46:43
Our own relationship with our father figures repeats in many other relationships, especially in the form of a father complex, whether negative or positive. The complex is based on the specific conditioning or programming we received as children though the real interactions with a father figure. This may compel us to search for father figures all our life, sometimes ruthlessly competing for their attention.
The Un-belonging Complex
Author: Denise Grobbelaar
Date Published: 2021-03-26 23:56:48
As human beings we have an inherent need to belong, whether with an intimate partner, to a family, friendship circle or community with shared values and experiences, and in due course to ourselves, our purpose and innate potential, and ultimately to Earth and the Cosmos.
Parental Complexes
Author: Denise Grobbelaar
Date Published: 2021-02-18 07:02:42
Awareness of how mother and father images live inside us is vital in being conscious of how they influence our current relationships. A parental complex can have enlivening and deadening features...