So... the movie's over. What now?

Maybe I'll recap. The stages that Jack progressed through were:

1. Baseline: The psychological space he was in just before it all began.

2. Ego Breakdown: The boundaries of the ego begin to crack or become porous allowing unconscious content to begin to seep through.

3. Ego Collapse: The boundaries are overcome by contents from the unconscious and the individual becomes unmistakably psychotic.

4. Entering the Unconscious: The individual may begin to directly engage unconscious content including the Shadow, the Anima/Animus and the Self.

5. Ego Death: In some cases, a complete death of the ego may occur. Anyone who has gone through this experience will likely find it helpful to draw on spiritual/religious texts which directly deal with this process.

We don't get to see it in the movie but the next logical step is:

6: Healing: A fragmentation crisis can be very hard on a body and a psyche. We need to heal. Months of quietude/withdrawal/rest can be helpful. During these months, it may often seem as if nothing is happening on the surface but a great deal can be happening in the depths of the psyche.

7. Rebuilding the Persona: Once a sufficient degree of healing has taken place, the next logical step is to rebuild our self-identity. This too takes time because our inner relationship with our self and everthing/everyone in the outer world has been substantially altered. Nonetheless, we rebuild our persona the same way we did it the first time -- by re-engaging with the exterior world; by resuming social roles and responsibilities; by entering into relationships with other people.

Various forms of therapy and treatment can assist us in these processes.

I think I can say this now: THE END.

~ Namaste

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