The braided river of the soul

Abstract

This paper pursues the fluidity of the psyche and relationships in the metaphor of a river rather than that of the ebb and flow of tides. In particular its focus is on the braided rivers which are a feature of the South Island landscape. A braided river has the characteristic of forming and reforming its channels as a shifting and reciprocal function between the water flow and the shingles of the river bed. The braided river can be travelled on by a jet-boat but only reveals its overall pattern from an elevated viewpoint; at ground level the ride is unpredictable and contains many unexpected twists and turns causing alarm or exhilaration largely depending on the company in which one is taking the journey. The metaphor is highly evocative for psychology and reminiscent of the more or less settled but somewhat modifiable channels or inscriptions on the psyche that some of the major theoreticians of the psyche have discussed.