CONRADIAN HORROR: SUICIDE, LOSS AND HEART OF DARKNESS

This paper presents a personal understanding of the work of two prominent writers, namely the English-Polish author Joseph Conrad and the psychotherapist Robert Hobson. I make particular reference to Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness as a work that decidedly influenced the thinking of Hobson. The allegoric themes evoked provide a landscape of rich contemplation, heavily laden with metaphor and allowing an exploration of suicide and loss. With this, I have attempted to make a statement on the impact that suicide has upon the therapist and, in doing so, provide some clinical and personal vignettes relating to my experience with suicide. I also provide an account of a deeply traumatized patient with dissociative identity disorder and chronic suicidal ideation. These reflections draw upon the language of Conrad and Hobson as suicide is considered both in a concrete literal sense and as an expansive non-linear metaphor. The term 'Conradian Horror' is given particular salience as evoking the dark and dismal vista of suicide and loss.