Passing in many senses: from Yama to the analyst’s office

The word “passage” arouses in the author associations going from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to the Nigredo. Tibetan Buddhism enjoins us to consider our being in the world and our death through the prism of the in-between, a view that allows us to cultivate a clear and liberating vision. Analytic treatment encourages us to meet our inner demons, to loosen the stranglehold of poisonous representations, etc. The various passages we go through instill uncertainty and doubt which, in the long run, free us from insecurity – a dynamic vital to the process of individuation.