The first reading allows the individual to react to it on a personal level, to relate the story of the tragic lovers in terms of his or her own experiences with love (Walker, 1995, p. 13). But secondary and tertiary (and so on) readings allow the individual to connect to the story on deeper and increasingly abstract levels so that an analysis of this story might come to understand it as a story of the temporary death of the individual and its potential and even expected rebirth as part of a universal mother, a submission of the identity of daughter and son into the more primary identity of creation and life. An individual who follows an analysis along such a path can explore his or her own feelings about love and loss, about autonomy and dependence, about fear and acceptance.

However, within the clinical setting, the client must choose his...
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