Meeting the Sphinx.

Here I present a close re-reading and creative expansion of Richard Rusbridger's (2004) clinical work with a patient who reported a dream of a hybrid woman. Building on W. R. Bion's reading of the Oedipus myth and Melanie Klein's theory of the combined parent figure, and drawing on imagery ancient and modern, I re-interpret the patient's dream as an encounter with the Sphinx. Why does this enigmatic figure, threatening annihilation, emerge at this particular threshold in the patient's analysis? To explore this question, I return to Sophocles' Oedipus the King and offer a new translation of the exchange between Tiresias and Oedipus as they debate the king's famous victory over the monster. Where (and when) do we meet the Sphinx today? What form does the ancient monster take in modern life? In this paper, I ask us to consider what it means to meet the Sphinx-and how we might respond.