To Live or Not To Live: That is the Question

This paper attempts to explore the stranglehold on the life of a patient who is be-devilled by his inner world. It suggests that the opposite of Evil is the word itself backwards, that is, 'Live'. In other words, reverse Evil and we have Live. Living is about loving (whole object relating) and working (being creative). Freud said that a normal person should be able to love and to work-'Lieben und Arbeiten' (Erikson, Childhood and Society, 1965, p. 256), which meant that the individual would not be so preoccupied with work productiveness 'to the extent that he loses his right or capacity to be a genital and loving being' (Erikson, p. 256). In this paper, the author considers the word 'Live'-living in its fullest form of loving and working to be the counterpart to a non-life dominated by the grip of destructiveness and evil thoughts. This theme is fleshed out through the clinical material on Mr A.