Time and the Garden of Eden Illusion

ABSTRACT This article explores the timelessness of idealised psychic retreats and then describes the traumatic impact of time as the patient emerges from the retreat to face reality. The Garden of Eden Illusion involves a retreat where time stands still. Everything is perfect but nothing changes, there is no development, no frustration, no losses and no passion. When the patient confronts the real world, he is introduced to the facts of life and, for each of these facts, time is significant. If the trauma of disillusion is too abrupt or the pain of waiting too severe, defences are mounted against the impact of reality. These involve misrepresentations of the facts of life in which experiences that involve time are repudiated in favour of instant solutions based on omnipotence. These misrepresentations of reality easily become erotised to create perverse scenarios with an addictive quality that are particularly resistant to change. It is possible to delineate Narcissistic Perversions, Oedipal Perversions and Romantic Perversions as defences against time in relation to each of Money-Kyrle’s facts of life.