Yerma, A Psychiatric View 
by Neftali Olmo, MD

                    
(Yerma by Federico García Lorca)

Yerma is a woman who sees her identity as being a mother. In her mind, there is nothing else to be for a rural woman. This is one step up from standard rural women of the traditional Spain who up to recently considered themselves fortunate enough to just be alive and follow the religion of the State, children or no children (except for Galicia, where having a child is the equivalent of a Keogh Plan for many rural women, where there were not enough men to go around).

The self image of Yerma is fused with that of her potential children, who literally run in her blood. She is one with them, a single mental representation for the multiplicity of persons that in reality would be separate. But by not having one from her own husband, who didn't want to have children, who becomes jealous thinking that she will betray him, she remains incomplete.

By killing Juan at the end of the play she has destroyed the other self-object representation: husband- son, and in such a state the story ends.

Lorca has what great writers and artists, like Kafka have: the ability to detect human predicament from everyday life and picture it in graphic form. These symbols (in Primary Process terms) are there for such perceptive beings to see. We, students of human behavior, see the same constructs and try to put them into various  conceptual terms. This is a necessary tool in order to learn how the mind works, at least in its outwards manifestations. 

The poet had been reflecting these images of fusion since at least 1923, when he was preparing the Suite, and in Arc of Moons, the second linse reads:
"My unborn children are chasing me." 

FIRST FRAME

Talking to Maria:
Every woman has blood for four or five children and when they don’t have them it becomes poison, as it is going to happen to me.
 

SECOND FRAME

Talking to the old lady:
Y -      Then, God have mercy of me.
OL -    God, no. I have never liked God. When are you going to find out that he does not exist? Men are the ones to shelter you. (STRIKING STATEMENT FOR SPAIN)
Y -      But, why do you say that, why? (SOFT RESPONSE)

SECOND ACT

SECOND FRAME

Men have other life, cattle, trees, conversation; we women don't have but offspring, caring for the offspring. 
 ...
I will end up believing that I am myself my son.
...
I never heard a man say while eating: How good are these apples. You go to your thing without bothering about the fine points.

THIRD ACT

SECOND FRAME

After trying everything and remaining faithful she kills Juan (by choking) and says that she must have simultaneously killed her son.

After the excesses of the Reds came the blue Phalangists, fascists that killed even more than the Reds.
  
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