#Freudian therapy

[cissyenthusiast010155]

Omg, your response was so amazing and helpful 😭❤ Thank you for taking the time to really get into all that. 💞 It also seems to have kinda sparked a conversation arround it, which is awesome! 😁

And ohhhhh ya, the religious trauma and gilt are real 😳🙄

You mentioned you have more to say if we want to hear it? I, for one, would LOVE to hear anything else you have to say on the topic! ❤

-🫖

Hi hi hi 🫖 anon!!

{Let’s Talk Religious Guilt and Trauma}

I am so glad that my response—Let’s Talk Healthy Solo Sex— was helpful and informative for you!! Of course!!! I want to give every ask and every anon the time and respect that they deserve ♥️♥️ And yes, I love that it sparked more of a conversation!! I’m so proud of you for reaching out and starting these discussions, anon!!! 🥰

I most definitely have more to say on the topic. For one, you can check out Let’s Talk Penetrative Sex and Let’s Talk Trauma in Relationships, which both stemmed from our conversation! And then there’s this response, fyi it will be another longer one 😊

*sigh* Yes, religious guilt and trauma are most definitely real. And those of experiences and feelings are so valid. Trauma of any kind is no joke. If you have any religious trauma or trauma of any other kind, I highly recommend that you seek a professional’s help.

So… What is Religious Trauma and Guilt?

A general definition for Religious Trauma is… “Religious trauma can happen when an individual’s religious experience has been damaging, abusive, degrading, stressful, or traumatic. When a religious experience is traumatic, it can damage your emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health”. Check out Cohesive Therapy NYC’s article on Religious Trauma for more detailed information! For an article that goes more into Religious Guilt, check out Considering Counseling’s article on Religious Trauma and Guilt…! ♥️

Religious trauma and guilt are especially tricky beasts… Many twisted religious teachings and persuasion is very cult like. (That’s not to say that all are, there are definitely less twisted, healthier religions and practices) But the ones that are rotten and manipulative, they dig deep into your core beliefs, especially if you’re a child, and they replace your identity with the identity of the religion/church/cult.

So, how do you deal with religious trauma and guilt?

Firstly, as I said above, seek professional help (I recommend an EMDR specialist for trauma—EMDR is a type of therapy that works to restructure traumatic memories in your brain)

On your own accord, Processing, Accepting, and then Healing is the overall goal. Talking it out and processing your experience and feelings with a trusted person can be helpful for some. I find that talking to someone who has also had religious trauma or guilt to be even more helpful, because of how they can relate. Sometimes journaling/writing about it can be another helpful tool. The key is to find some way to express those emotions, to get them out of you.

Personally, my own story is that I have both religious trauma and guilt, but I definitely struggle more with my religious trauma. I was raised in a Catholic school and an Interfaith-Christian household. We moved around a lot, and so I went to many Christian churches like Non-Denominational, Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Southern Christian/Baptist. After the Catholic primary school, I moved to a Christian Charter school for six years. At that age, all my activities were based around my church and religious school; safe to say, religion was a very big part of my childhood. When Covid hit, I had had enough and I used the social distancing and the lockdown as a way to disconnect from the church. I effectively stopped going to church in 2020. I then took that time to explore my religious trauma and guilt, and this was where my healing journey began.

Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone’s journey is valid. ♥️

I began my work with my CBT therapist (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy— most therapy is CBT or Freudian). I found that most of my religious guilt was tied to my sexuality, and that I really struggled with being gay and being religious. So I explored that. I talked about it with lots of people, including my therapist, trusted family members, and other trusted religious people. I found that finding others who struggled with sexuality and religion was extremely helpful, it made me feel validated and not alone in the struggle. Today, I am way further along with my religious guilt than I was 3 years ago, but I definitely still have more to process, accept, and heal from.

Next there was my religious trauma. For this, I started with my CBT therapy as well. It was helpful, but after 3 years, I have run into a wall… It depends on the intensity of your trauma, because “little t” trauma is more easily resolved through CBT, whereas “capital T” trauma requires the neural network in your brain. My trauma is more “capital T”, and so I found that CBT therapy only helped me so much. This is why I recommend EMDR therapy for trauma. EMDR therapy targets restricting your neural network, working out the traumatic memories.

Everyone’s experience is different, so what worked for me and what didn’t work might be different for you, and that’s okay. This is only my experience. But I hope that it was a little helpful, and that you at least feel less alone in your feelings. Because they are so valid. ♥️♥️

So yea, those are my key points for religious trauma and guilt…! Hope this was somewhat relatable, helpful, and informative 🥰 Don’t hesitate to reach out and chat with me, ask or dm! Hope you have a lovely day/night!! 💞💞

Talk with Me ❤️‍🔥

[uncanny-tranny]

Talked about this in a tag rant, but in mental health advocacy spaces or mental health awareness spaces, it is imperative that we stop treating cognitive behavioural therapy as the Only Option or the Best Option. As a survivor, having CBT therapists coach me through ongoing abuse was very unhelpful at best. At a certain point, going to my "mind palace" did not help me go home to a place that was a threat to me.

Yes, there are good uses for CBT. No, that doesn't mean that it is the only option for helping people who are struggling. It is dangerous to prop up CBT as the only option. It is dangerous to not inform a patient about all treatment options and what would look best for them (it's also dangerous how insurance may only cover CBT therapists, too. It is extremely dangerous.)

[hampterguts]

i might not be very smart. rung was such a bad therapist that i was convinced that everything he did was some long undercurrent theme of what bad therapy will do to a group of people who need it. but then the author threw froid and sunder in.

[envolvenuances]

I'm gonna try a real diary is just that I take the real diary for my therapist

[fangirlinglikeabus]

other twist i Know is that zarl is actually six...so all the talk about his wife who died and who he's now discovered exists in another form Sure Is Something

[britneyshakespeare]

i rant in the tags boldly and without fear

[nicklloydnow]

“A patient is always surprised when he is told something that unconsciously he already knows. This follows from our designation of surprise as the reaction to the fulfillment of an unconscious expectation. He will take in what was formerly known to him and has only been alienated, as if it were something new, and will repel it. We may now understand the effect, which often does not appear until later, of such a surprising communication, if we recognize it as a kind of psychical shock that it takes time to master.

We shall not be put off by the fact that the patient experiences these surprises within his ego, although he thinks that he is well acquainted with his own inner life. It will seem strange to us that the analyst, too, who has such wide experience, is largely dependent upon receiving such knowledge from unknown powers of the ego, and upon listening for the stirrings within him in tracking the hidden meaning of psychical phenomena. Where the analyst's idea penetrates to the profoundest depths of the other's inner life, it may be recognized as the offspring of what is repressed in the analyst and appears to him as something alien. In short, to sum up the matter: The most vital knowledge obtained by the analyst of the unconscious-repressed is, for him too, a surprise. It is true that this surprise reaction will lose intensity as the analyst gains insight and deeper psychological knowledge. There may come a time when it does not appear at all. But at least in the early years of an analyst's work it remains as a sure signal that his own unconscious is involved in the recognition of unconscious relations. It is not logical reflection and theoretical learning that constitute the core of the preconscious and unconscious knowledge, so helpful to the psychologist in later years in recognizing repressed processes, but the memory-traces of the surprise he has experienced. If, in our analyses of mental effects, we can so often infer hidden, unconscious motives, the inference is of value, not so much as a logical operation but rather as the outcome of repeated insight into the mind that surprised the analyst at first.

We mistrust psychologists who declare that they experience no such surprises, that the unconscious of those whom they study is immediately transparent to them and easy to penetrate. There may be psychoanalysts of such a nature. They are, so to speak, professional experts in the depths of the human soul. The netherworld is their oyster. The psychologist "who is surprised" then stands consciously opposed to those for whom there are no surprises left in the inner life. If these gentlemen boast that they find it easy "to read the other person," that the unconscious lies before them like an open book, then they do not know how to read it. The wonders of the inner reality are hidden from their sight. I know that there are many psychoanalysts who shrink from what is astonishing and set up a defense against what is sur prising in the psychological field, and try to protect themselves against it. They put up a barrier of theoretical learning, to parry and intercept it. But the best of our profession, the most valuable of our art and craft, have learned to appreciate the heuristic value of surprising ideas emerging from the unconscious, and gladly welcome them. (You shall be welcome whenever you come.)

The surprise that is felt when the unconscious meaning of individual phenomena is recognized, when the latent significance of individual symptoms, dreams, strange reactions, is understood, may increase at a later stage, toward the end of the process of analysis. When we survey the development of a neurosis or a special character, our surprise does not diminish when we recognize how the co-operation or confict of particular impulses has produced just this emotional result, how inevitably and yet how naturally just this type of character arose in the play of psychical forces. And so, when his task is accomplished, the psychologist is struck with amazement as he surveys what he has seen of the dynamic and economic conditions of the inner processes. His incipient understanding of the methods by which our mental machinery works will not lessen his amazement, but rather increase it.” (pages 245 - 247)

[theflagscene]

Okay so I get the inherent homoeroticism in male on male relationships on television, especially in this day and age when people are desperate for some kind of LGBTQ+ representation in their media, so they occasionally grasp at straws. But! And this is a big but, has anyone at GMMTV ever actually had a sibling!? Like we get that your best numbers come from ‘teh gay’ but just so you know, BROTHERS DON’T ACT THE WAY YOU’RE WRITING THEM!!

I mean, I won’t kink shame, you do you, ya know. But really GMMTV, right in front of my salad? 🥗

[str82theheartpls]

Therapy is for Understanding not Healing

Some of my friends refuse to go to therapy. I’ll admit, it’s a small subset of my huuuuuge group of friends (lol) but they exist! My post- or currently in- therapy friends and I, who have been therapized, therapize each other, read Freud and Jung, and psychoanalyze other friends when they’re not in the room with analyses so in-depth so scathing you’d think we get paid for our time, can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to go to therapy. 

Up until recently, I thought it was because they were scared of introspection. Now, I think it has to do with the POINT of therapy. The why behind it. The whole reason we’re there.

Around 1890, as Freud was writing his work, Studies on Hysteria, he wrote that the end goal of therapy was to turn the patient’s “hysterical misery into uncommon happiness.” In other words, Freud just wants your brain to function at a normal level, so that you too can join in the suffering that is the human experience!😊

But today, therapists, influencers who claim to be therapists, characters in movies, tv shows, and books, and normal IRL people will have you believe that therapy is THE panacea. Dr. Nicole LePera (@the.holistic.psychologist), a clinical psychologist with 6 million Instagram followers, writes in her Instagram bio for all to see, “I teach you to heal + consciously create a new version of yourself.”

👁️👄👁️To heal AND to create a completely new version of myself?!?! Seems like a lofty goal to me. But go off I guess!

Freud in his writings, was constantly doubting his techniques, questioning the efficacy of psychoanalysis and other therapies, and even questioning himself. So he was a #humble king.

But I’ve noticed that now, through societal expectations and online culture, therapy promises prospective clients a lot. There’s a lot of talk about “healing generational trauma,” “breaking old patterns,” and “self-actualization.” (To be clear, I don’t really blame professionals and the field of Psychology and Therapy for this, I mostly blame TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.)

But if the one and only Father of Psychology (or as I like to call him, the Daddy of Psychology) believes that therapy isn’t about fixing and is instead about understanding, then how did we get here? And is having this lofty expectation of complete and utter healing keeping people from going to therapy?

The way I understand Freud’s above quote is this: The ultimate goal of therapy is not to really improve or cure the person but to get them to make their unconscious ideas, wishes, fears, and desires conscious. If we don’t believe in unconscious/conscious thoughts, then we can say that Freud believed the ultimate goal of therapy was to help the client understand their actions, mistakes, desires, wishes, fears, etc. 

And once someone truly understands themselves, digs deep, and confronts the fears and desires that they try so hard to bury in their subconscious, then we come to another problem: they are suddenly deeply unhappy, because they’re able to now judge themselves for these things that were once hidden. 

And maybe that’s the most difficult part of therapy: uncovering beliefs and thoughts that you’ve held deep inside for so long and having to reckon with what truly makes you human. I feel like that’s what makes introspection so difficult. We really want to like ourselves, and if we know too much, we might not like ourselves!😨

So that’s one reason why my friends might be avoiding therapy. Okay fine. That’s somewhat, maybe understandable! 

BUT WHAT IF…. They’re avoiding therapy not because they’re scared of their true selves, but because they’re scared to start therapy thinking that they’ll never reach this lofty goal of self-actualization and complete healing that is promised to us TODAY but that Freud doesn’t actually believe in?

This seems closer to the truth for me. Today, we have a big emphasis on HEALING which shouldn’t be the actual goal of therapy. The goal of therapy I think is to truly understand our actions, motives, and desires so that we can then gain control of these things. 

I think capitalism and the internet have created this belief that therapy should completely heal us. Because if it doesn’t completely “heal” us why are we paying for it? Capitalism has existed for so long, but mix capitalism with social media and constant ideas and phenomena being turned into fodder for influencers, and you get the societal belief that therapy needs a PRODUCT in order for it to be worth it under capitalism. What makes therapy worth it? The complete eradication of all your problematic behaviors, urges that stem from past experiences, toxic traits, etc.

So moving forward, I hope we can use Freud’s goal of therapy rather than Instagram’s. If not for us, then let’s do it for my friends. They really need it. 😉

[misscammiedawn]

What is "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy"?

[psychicreading-live]

[tanktopbuzzcutgay]

Think I'm gonna quit therapy >:)

[superectojazzmage]

Just back from Alien Romulus and hoooo boy oh boy. Review/analysis.

Easily the best Alien movie since the first two, which isn't saying much, yeah, but it is legit a really cool and well-made movie, competing with Late Night With The Devil, Longlegs, and Cuckoo for title of my favorite horror movie this year.

In a lot of ways it's about harvesting the few good ideas from the post-2 movies that were squandered and doing them right, plus getting the series back to it's healthier roots, kinda the movie equivalent of someone doing physical therapy to get back in the saddle after an injury. This means it's not quite brand new ground like some may hope for and I've heard some people feel it gets a little derivative at points because of it. I can kinda agree and certainly understand that criticism, but I feel it does what it's aiming for really well and sets things up for future works to go in even crazier directions. Furthermore, it takes a lot of time to try and weld together the disparate post-2 movies in a way that brings the series back to a little coherency.

The atmosphere is really intense and cool, swinging between lovecraftian dread and build-up and high-energy chaos. The aesthetics and special effects are gorgeous, taking full advantage of the progress that technology has made since 2 plus really digging in to the used cassette future vibe of the older films. The characters are likable and actually intelligent (or at least understandable) in behavior like in the first two movies, so you care about what's happening to them instead of just waiting for them to get munched. The action and kills were really cool and creative, the cinematography in general was off-kilter in an awesome way - there's a definite attempt to make the movie feel claustrophobic and intimate. Fede Alvarez did a fantastic job in general, I'd love to see him do more with the series.

It REALLY cranks up the series' psychosexual, freudian, and sexual assault subtext, arguably to a point where it's just plain text. So if you're sensitive to stuff like that or if this is your first go at Alien, be warned for that.

More specific notes go under the header for spoilers. Highly recommend you go in as blind as you can.

Andy and Rain were wonderful leads, their dynamic was fantastic and Calie Spaeny and David Jonsson both turned in great performances. I direly hope they join the first two films' casts as "major" characters for the series going forward.

The effects to make Daniel Betts look like Ian Holms were quite possibly the one and only time the special effects failed. It looks very wonky, which is sad because Betts does a really good job copying Holms' mannerisms for Ash while still making Rook feel like a distinct character.

In addition to the usual themes of sexual unease, genetics, and parenthood, this movie adds in some really interesting themes of familial legacy, the rise of new generations, foundations, etc.. Andy and Rain are like Romulus and Remus of myth, orphaned and left to fend for themselves but growing into founders of a new age - both in-story with their carrying the XX121 substance and evidence of Weyland-Yutani's misdeeds to Yvaga and out-of-story with them being the protagonists of a new era for Alien. Likewise, the Offspring is the first example of an entirely new species, neither human nor alien but taking from the lineages of both through Kay and Big Chap, a Romulus-like founder of it's breed that will later bear fruit in Resurrection with the Ripley clone and Newborn.

I'm really not kidding when I say above that the psychosexual undercurrents are taken to the extreme here. This movie basically sees the ways the original film subtly pin-pricked at those themes, says "fuck that", and deliberately rubs it in your face in a way designed to make sure you can't ignore it. It wants you to be grossed out and to squirm in your chair and it knows exactly how to make it happen.

Alvarez noted in the lead-up to release that he took a lot of influence from Isolation and you can definitely see that in how he depicts the Xenomorphs and the general aura of the film. He further described it as a kind of halfway point between the first and second movies and you can also see that; it has the Lovecraft-style tension and horror of the first, balanced with the energy and action of the second, and it does a really good job finding a middle ground between Ridley Scott and James Cameron's styles while also doing it's own dance.

I mentioned way back at the start how the movie basically harvests the good ideas from 3, Resurrection, Prometheus, and Covenant and gives them the room they deserve while dumping the bad. It does that in both terms of themes/style and continuity/lore. Concepts that those movies bungled like xeno-human hybridism, the black goo, genetic engineering as a focus, and so on are done here more creatively and competently. Themes that those films tried and failed to tackle are handled with significantly more grace. It has the atmosphere and characterization of 3 but none of it's baggage and needlessly depressive tone. It has the body horror and weirdness of Resurrection without taking it to the zany, embarrassing areas that movie went. The effects and creativity of Prometheus and Covenant without any of their awful writing and clumsy messages. Alvarez takes on kind of an Al Ewing-esque "repairman" writing style here.

The Xenomorphs are absolutely deranged in behavior compared to most portrayals, attacking like either cruel sadists or raging chimps and rarely bothering to take hosts. I'm not sure if such a reading was intended, but I got the vibe that the idea is Xenos raised without a queen or hive grow to be basically sociopathic like how real world predatory animals grown without parental figures become feral and dysfunctional. Which would also explain a lot about how the Xeno in the original movie, Big Chap, acts there.

The Offspring's design is fucking wicked and I love it.

One of my few major criticisms is that Big Chap died off-screen instead of getting more to do. What was the point of having him be alive at the start if he wasn't gonna be used beyond a backstory point to set up the main story?

All in all, a very impressive effort and a great return to form for the series that I recommend highly.

[gremlingottoosilly]

König is a weird and manipulative mf who will use his "psychology knowledge" against his darling just to get laid. After a whole week begging her and explaining Freudian shit about mommy issues and how "sucking her tits will heal his inner child" she finally accepts. So, so sad, König.

Konig might be a prideful person who thinks a lot about his image and how others perceive him. He would not allow you to make fun of him and would always find a way to come out on top...but in your situation, it's mostly about coming on top of you. Unfortunately, this is the truth, and you'd have to allow him to suck on your tits because he would be really, really sad otherwise. It's almost funny to see this proud man acting like an overgrown toddler - but you're also mildly terrified at the possibility of him being a bit more forceful. It's easy to turn off your brain and ask him to be a bit softer, a bit more gentle - even though you understand it probably won't be possible. He is spending hours talking about his deep-seated mommy trauma and parental issues, and you almost regret asking him to go to therapy because this man can weaponize the language oh so easily. Healed Konig is an awful and manipulative man who will make you cum just from having your tits sucked and played with, and it makes you squirm. He gives you kinks you never thought about, and it makes you really uncomfortable...unfortunately, he doesn't care - his inhibitors lowered since his anxiety is gone, and his desire to push his tongue all over you makes you wish for him to gain another development trauma, just so he could be shy again. Unfortunately, hiz buzz words do not take his tongue skills away...you do love the way he swirls it around, as embarrassed as you are to admit it.

[here-there-were-dragons]

there’s something deeply wrong with the fact that if i just simply decided to walk around everywhere on all fours all day, and did absolutely nothing else differently, i would be guaranteed to have the cops called on me and be put back in a psych ward with at least 5 new diagnosis by the end of the day.

walking around on all fours isn’t even something i do or would want to do. it would destroy my arthritic-ass spine. but there’s something deeply, rage-inducingly fucked up about the fact that even something that small is enough for this society to deem it morally acceptable and necessary to dissapear you into fucking conversion therapy torture jail indefinitely and saddle you with life-ruining legal tags forever “for your and everyone’s safety”!

just commenting on this as being fucked up could very easily be enough to get me the same treatment if someone decided they wanted to! it’s not like anyone’s going to stop some psych person from deciding that this is totally real undeniable freudian slip 100% true we promise you guys evidence that i’m some kind of feral mentally degenerate personimal mindlessly beholden to some illogical instinct to crawl around and bite good normal god-fearing real people because CLEARLY you’d have to be crazy yourself and/or want to DO the thing yourself to defend this UNCOMFORTABLE THING, right? nobody could just think it’s fucked up how we treat doing (abnormal thing) without being a Secret Monster themselves, REAL people obviously know unquestioningly why it’s bad, you just want to be allowed to give in to your corrupted malformed wrong EVIL base instincts that you definitely have (INSTEAD of a conscious mind with any valid logical thoughts or worthwhile human experiences in it) because i said so and i’m The Expert so everything i say is true and right!

i can’t even figure out where to fit in the bit about how fucked it is that if you did anything “abnormal” like that literally everyone automatically assumes you’re going to be dangerous and violent about it. that if someone decides to go around on all fours then CLEARLY they’re going to randomly bite GOOD HEALTHY NORMAL REAL people for no reason. it’s like people can’t comprehend the idea of any even slightly deviant behavior that isn’t violence and just assume if anything even slightly weird’s going on it’s moving in the direction of mindless bloodshed-of good normal people’s blood, especially, personally, obviously. human-shaped things come in “actual person” and “mindless rabid horrordemon that desires only real human’s blood and pain” and as far as they’re concerned everything that even slightly inhabits, leans towards, or vaguely reminds them of the second category is functionally identical and will inevitably attack real humans the same way-for literally no reason beyond a cosmic ontological sort of Wrongness and Emptiness Of Real Thought And Soul-if allowed to exist in their field of view longer than thirty seconds.

[cedarxwing]

The ending of Hannibal the novel explained

(aka the breastfeeding scene)

Here's the passage (end of Chapter 101):

I thought everyone was kidding about the breastfeeding kink jokes until my partner read Hannibal and the whole ending flew over their head. Their main takeaway was "that was weird." When I checked reddit, it seemed everyone was confused there too. I was gobsmacked to see one guy say that Thomas Harris was playing some cruel joke on the reader by writing an ending that didn't make sense!

How many people are reading Hannibal like this, completely missing the resolution to Hannibal's character arc? They must finish the book confused about what it was all about in the first place. So here's how I understand it!

First, I need to get this out of the way: a lot of people hate this scene, and from what I understand it's because they're weirded out by the "breastfeeding kink." Which is fine, but it makes me want to gently hold them by the hand and tell them that it's ok for someone to suck on a nipple. It happens all the time. Sometimes it just feels good, sometimes it's part of a breastfeeding fantasy, and sometimes it's literal breastfeeding. Between consenting adults, this is all fine and normal. Let's all move past this knee-jerk repulsion (or alternatively, sit in our discomfort and expand our horizons) so we can analyze this piece of art together. :)

Next, authors LOVE Freudian psychoanalysis. Even though it's all nonsense, it's full of literary allusion and makes for compelling narratives and character studies (childhood maladjustment, repressed memories, etc), which is basically catnip for a writer. Thomas Harris was no exception, and probably creamed himself (as I did) when he learned that Freud's oral-sadistic stage was also termed the "cannibalistic stage," referring to the time when an infant is growing teeth and begins to bite at the breast--the psychosexual urge to devour and destroy the thing you love. What could be more appropriate for Hannibal?

Next, consider the pattern of Hannibal's Il Mostro murders. He killed young couples in one of the most romantic cities in the world, then arranged them as Chloris and Zephyr from Botticelli's Primavera, exposing Chloris's left breast just like in the painting. In classical art, an exposed breast is often a symbol of fertility. Chloris is associated with spring, new growth, and transformation.

Perhaps, at the time, Hannibal rationalized these murders as retribution for rude behavior. Maybe the couples were performing disgusting PDA. Maybe they were obnoxious tourists on their honeymoons. Either way, it's clear to the reader that Hannibal has some deep-seated hang up about sex and romance.

The particulars of this hang up are open to interpretation, but based on Hannibal's obsession with the rape and transformation of Chloris as well as his embarrassment at the paintings of Leda and the Swan in the German's house, I think it's safe to say that Hannibal feels like any relationship he has with a woman who isn't aware of his true (monstrous) identity would involve a degree of violence/lack of consent. He is forever barred from normal romance.

Having given up on sex/romance, Hannibal is unable to consciously recognize his desire for Clarice, so he sublimates it into a more general familial love. He longs for a return to innocence, to return to the time before he ate Mischa and became an unlovable monster (cue the teacup metaphor).

But even familial love seems like too much to hope for, so he sublimates it further into something that seems more attainable: resurrecting the person whom he loved and devoured, and who loved him in turn (Mischa) through Clarice.

So we have the breast as a symbol of sex/fertility (Chloris/Clarice), as an object that is loved and devoured (Mischa), and as a literal source of sustenance that must be given up during infancy (mommy).

Big brain Clarice connects all these dots and, in the very same style of therapy that Hannibal has been using on her, distills Hannibal's psychological problems into a single poetic gesture that completely fixes Hannibal in an instant, proving that she's not only his intellectual equal, but is, in some ways, his superior.

When Clarice asks, "Did you ever feel that you had to relinquish the breast to Mischa? Did you ever feel you were required to give it up for her?", she's ostensibly asking Hannibal if he's stuck in the oral stage of childhood development (which yeah he probably is). On a deeper level, she's asking Hannibal to consider if he's given up on love.

When Clarice exposes her breast in the same fashion as Chloris, says, "You don’t have to give up this one", and suspends the drop of wine from her nipple, she is shifting his perception of her breast from familial devoured sustenance to a sexual object. Basically, "Why do you want me to pretend I'm your sister when we could be banging?" Hannibal is being aged out of his childlike mindset, not regressing into one.

There are other layers of meaning in this act. The hedonism of using thousand dollar wine for food play is a sign of Clarice's character development. The way Hannibal kneels before Clarice is a position of subservience, but could also be interpreted as devouring Clarice in a way that's new to him. It's the most self-actualized thing Hannibal has done since escaping prison (LOL) and marks the end of his hero's journey (as one of the first things we see him do in Hannibal Rising is nurse).

Personally, I don't read this scene as breastfeeding kink. Yeah, Clarice talks about breastfeeding, but that was more a metaphor for other stuff. Considering the direction of Hannibal's character arc, I understand this scene as him briefly licking the wine off before they have sex. But to each their own! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANYWAY, yeah, it's unsettling. It's obviously meant to be. But it's beautifully unsettling! Hate it all you want, but this is peak cannibal romance, to me!!