On Falling Down a Hole

This article depicts, in first person, the author's experience of descent and return during a conversation with her mother. It presents a conceptual framework for the state of spacious self-awareness that develops when self, other, and observing self are in relationship; describes the daughter-mother encounter, during which the author's sense of "inner space" flattens and collapses (with resultant depression, loss of ability to symbolize, and inundation by unconscious elements); and illustrates the process of the author's return to her former state of self-awareness.