The Nature of Taboo within Cultural Complexes: Theoretical and Clinical Applications

The symbolic nature of taboo is examined as a container that differentiates developmental stages between the social values order/disorder through a ritual, liminal process of separating order as clean/blessed/safety and disorder as polluted/disassociated/risky. Unconscious/conscious taboos embody that perilous journey across margins in rites of passage and their emotional value and intensity in the form of symptomology varies cross-culturally. Two clinical cases are presented to illustrate the influence of taboo on obsessive compulsions and anorexia nervosa. Particular attention is given as to whether dirt as disorder/rubbish can be recycled at the margins between safety and risk and value redistributed to the intrapsychic and psychosocial anomalous bits and pieces that are discarded as rubbish.