Part 2 - Kinky Venus Myth of Eros and Psyche.

If you haven't read part 1, you can find it here.

At this stage in the myth, Psyche is torn between two extremes. She is caught in an idealized state, trusting Eros implicitly, while simultaneously battling an opposing force of malevolence and distrust, personified by her wicked sisters.

Eros is both the all-loving, perfect husband and the devouring monster. (Sound familiar ladies?)

We must again turn back to the multilayered interpretation of the myth. We’re simultaneously examining the dynamics within the male and female psyche, as well as the interplay between them.

The male psyche experiences an exposure by his inner or outer woman and flees (withdraws). It seems that he escapes, but he flies straight back to his own mother complex.

In a relationship, this could mean that once a man’s Ego is exposed, he withdraws from the outer woman physically but still has a secret longing to connect or, on another level, to heal her. He is wounded and afflicted by a terrible sense of guilt and shame; the whole mental construct he had created for himself is shattered.

The lamp symbolizes consciousness shining its light on a previously unconscious state, akin to the eating of the forbidden fruit in Adam and Eve. Here too, like Psyche, Eve is tempted by her shadow side. Her bringing the knife might as well resemble an Animus attack, her Animus principle representing Logos (reason, structure, and spiritual direction) turns harsh, critical and power-driven.

Anima might attack the ego with statements like “You’re not good enough” or “No one will love you”. Under stress, the Animus can hijack thought, leading to circular reasoning, compulsive debate, or emotional shutdown. In a relationship, the Animus can be projected onto the partner, causing them to be seen as oppressive, weak, or inadequate, thereby mirroring the individual’s internal critic.

The outer woman is the one who shines the light of consciousness on the man, exposing him; she is the one who triggers the initial trauma. The need for healing the mother and losing oneself in the process is exposed as it is enacted in the relationship.

In the unfolding of the relationship, the man must be conscious not to step back into his own schizoid position (fractured identity), his false self, the perfect lover, the Eros in hiding.

The Anima figure in a man’s psyche, linked to emotion, relatedness, and mood, is triggered by the woman’s Animus attack.

If unaware, it can manifest as emotional flooding, passive-aggressive response, withdrawal, and self-pity. The woman is seen as either good or bad; there is no middle ground. Both states match the schizoid difficulty with dealing with tolerating ambivalence in a relationship; they avoid the real other, with all its complexity and contradictions.

Here again, we can turn to Genesis where the devil tempts Eve with the words: “You will be like God, knowing Good and Evil”. It is often the old parental wound, a trauma, the devil that initiates the negative Anima and Animus dynamics, and paradoxically, it is the same Devilish trauma, an early childhood dynamic that blocks healing and integration.

The association with the devil is appropriate here, the word stemming from Diabolos, dia (apart) and ballein (to throw), the one who throws apart ~ the one who divides. Goethe puts the words “I am the spirit who negates” in Mephisto’s mouth.

The capacity for anger and destruction is projected(thrown) outwards; it brings clarity, but it blocks dealing with one’s own ambivalence and ultimately blocks healing.

Ambivalence is the state of having simultaneous, contradictory feelings, thoughts, or attitudes towards a person, object, or action. It is characterized by a "tug-of-war" between opposing emotions, such as love and hate or attraction and repulsion, often leading to uncertainty, hesitation, or difficulty making decisions. In these allegories we see that the garden of Eden was the undivided state of harmony. Returning to the undivided state is brining heaven and Earth together, often ushered by Eros, also this is the hourney of the Venus Sequence - the returning to our innocence.

Learn more about Kinky Venus Sequence Mentorship starting June 2026

Psyche’s Trials or The Labours of Psyche.

Psyche’s grief after Eros suddenly abandons her is not simply the grief of losing a lover. Psychologically, it represents the collapse of an entire inner world built upon idealization, fusion, and unconscious safety.

The golden palace Eros keeps her in symbolizes a fantasy state of love: beautiful, intoxicating, and protected from reality. When Eros disappears, Psyche is expelled not only from relationship, but from the illusion that sustained her identity.

The intensity of this grief often reaches far beyond the present relationship because it activates something much older within the psyche. Relational rupture has a way of awakening early attachment wounds: moments in childhood where emotional safety felt unstable, unpredictable, or suddenly withdrawn.

In these environments, the child learns to preserve connection at all costs. Fear, anger, grief, and aggression are split off because they are unconsciously experienced as threats to attachment itself. The child sacrifices authenticity in order to maintain the psychological umbilical cord with the caregiver.

From Psyche’s perspective, the revelation is devastating. She not only loses Eros, but confronts a terrifying truth about herself. The woman who once saw herself as innocent and adored now realizes she was capable of violence, suspicion, and destruction.

Symbolically, this marks the awakening of the split-off shadow the rage, fear, aggression, and death instinct that had remained unconscious beneath the idealized self-image.

This moment corresponds closely to what Melanie Klein described as the movement from the paranoid-schizoid position into the depressive position.

In the paranoid-schizoid state, the psyche survives through splitting: people are experienced as either wholly good or wholly bad. But in the depressive position, consciousness deepens enough to recognize that the same person we love is also the person toward whom we may feel anger, envy, resentment, or aggression.

This realization produces guilt rather than shame.

Toxic Shame says: “I am bad.”

Depressive guilt or healthy shame says: “I may have harmed what I love.”

This distinction is crucial because guilt, unlike shame, opens the possibility for reparation. The desire is no longer to return to unconscious fusion, but to restore connection through greater consciousness, accountability, and mutual subjectivity.

Under stress, betrayal, or emotional overwhelm, the psyche may temporarily regress into splitting again, oscillating between idealization and devaluation, closeness and withdrawal.

Yet each return to awareness strengthens the individual’s capacity to hold ambivalence consciously without collapsing into fragmentation. It is significant that Psyche, in her despair, turns towards Venus.

Symbolically, this suggests that healing requires confrontation with the maternal archetype itself.

At this stage of the myth, however, the mother appears only in her negative form: critical, withholding, jealous, and impossible to satisfy.

From a shadow work perspective, archetypes exist latently within the psyche, but become activated through relational experience and mirroring. A woman struggling with schizoid defenses or unstable attachment may have lacked sufficient emotional mirroring from the maternal environment and therefore searches externally for the missing inner mother: the archetypal source of containment, stability, and unconditional holding.

The myth now shifts from unconscious romance into initiation.

Psyche’s longing for Eros leads her directly into the trials.

These tasks are not punishments.They are psychological transformations.

Ready for Part 3?