Myth and dreams are at the epicentre of Christou’s methodology. As he wrote, his purpose was [to] “connect mythic function with dream function”. The mythic interpretation of the world is a primary source of his inspiration.
These views were determined to a great extent by his engagement with analytical psychology, founded by the Swiss psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and philosopher Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) – as well as by his psychoanalyst brother, Evey Christou (1923–1956). The latter matured academically within the Jungian environment and Jung himself held him in high esteem.
Christou diligently recorded his dreams almost on a daily basis, a practice that analytical psychology considered a fundamental tool in connecting the individual to the subconscious. For his compositions, he often consulted these records for inspiration, a case in point being The Strychnine Lady, which he characterised as “a dream ritual”.
