Oedipus and the Oedipus complex: A revision

The authors consider whether those aspects of the Oedipus myths that have been ignored by Freud could improve our knowledge of how the Oedipus complex develops. They conclude that the myths can provide an answer to Freud's question posed on the 25 February 1914 (Nunberg and Federn, 1975, p. 234) concerning “the extent to which the Oedipus complex is a reflection of the sexual behavior of the parents” with Fenichel's (1931, p. 421) view that the “child's Oedipus complex reflects that of his parents”.     

Elements of the Oedipus complex: A Kleinian account1

The author discusses and illustrates the place in current Kleinian practice of the analysis of the Oedipus complex. He outlines the development of the concept of the Oedipus complex by Freud and by Klein and later writers in the Kleinian tradition. Because the child's exclusion from his parents' sexual relationship represents such a fundamental aspect of reality for the child, analysis of the patient's responses to the oedipal situation constitutes the central task of analysis. Despite the Oedipus complex being in this way central, it is sometimes hard to discern because what is most visible are the patient's defensive responses to the oedipal situation. The emergence of meaning in analysis is often understood unconsciously as the product of the parental intercourse, represented by the work of the patient with the analyst, or of the analyst's or the patient's mind. The analysis of the patient's characteristic reactions to moments of meaningfulness in analysis is therefore an especially fruitful focus for the analysis of the Oedipus complex. The author illustrates these ideas by three clinical examples, from a 3½‐year‐old child, a borderline psychotic patient and a more neurotic patient.     

The Kore complex: on a woman's inheritance of her mother's failed Oedipus complex

The Greek myth of Kore/Persephone captures a particular psychopathology of women who are torn between a deadened and often asexual husband (Hades) and an ongoing close relationship with a caretaking mother (Demeter). Psychoanalytic work often reveals that these women live in the shadow of their mothers' failed oedipal complex. Their identificatory preoccupation with maternal object preservation disrupted or distorted their oedipal development, and ever since continues to serve as a defense against sexual strivings. Thus, these women are trapped in a Kore complex: as maiden caretakers, they remain attached to and torn between a "grain mother" and a grandfather transference object.     

Some relations between the negative Oedipus complex and aggression in the male

The conflictual problems that accompany the Oedipus complex, in both its positive and negative (normal and inverted) forms, have long been recognized. It has also been well established that normal and pathological identifications derive from bisexual tendencies and from the complications of early life experiences that reinforce love or hate toward father and mother respectively. In the male, two mechanisms that can operate to bring about a predominant feminine identification and hence a negative or inverted Oedipus complex have been described. First, there is that of a primary identification with the mother, and the seeking of the father as object, with castration anxiety as a consequence. Alternatively, the sequence has been considered to involve positive oedipal wishes with mother as object; accompanying castration anxiety based on expectation of punishment; submission in a negative oedipal position as an attempted defense, only serving, however, to reinforce castration anxiety; and ultimately, a reversion to reactive aggression against the father. The links between unconscious homosexuality and paranoia in light of the foregoing dynamics have been indicated. The influence of preoedipal experience has long been presumed, though not systematically traced. With the advance of understanding of the earliest phases of childhood development, further clarification has become possible. Several factors are discussed in this paper, with illustrative clinical material. Included are the parental roles in perpetuating infantile conflicts of each libidinal phase, and in progression from symbiosis to successful separation-individuation. The resultant difficulties in ego development and in the establishment of mature object relations are described. The subsequent problems in mastering the tasks of the oedipal phase are detailed, showing the effects in terms of alternating positive and negative oedipal strivings. The adolescent-phase struggles are touched on, including the unrealistic ego-ideal structuring based on the negative oedipal stresses. Finally, the relation between unconscious homosexuality, beating fantasies, and paranoia is discussed, with the implications regarding aggression and its effects on psychopathology.     

The Oedipus complex as observed in work with couples and their children

In work with couples where there is a child referred to a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, there are opportunities to observe and to work with unresolved Oedipal issues brought by the parents to the task of creating a family. These conflicts can be seen enacted by the child or children, either internally or externally. Examples are given from five cases: the first two from brief family work where the children are under five and the difficulties are to some extent resolved. The next two demonstrate more intractable problems of psychopathology where the parental Oedipal conflicts are handed down to the next generation, and the paper concludes with an example of couple work in relation to individual therapy with a child, where despite the pressure of considerable pathology in the parents' backgrounds there is a will to integration and progress is made.     

Differentiation of self and psychosocial development

This study investigated the relationship between Bowens (1978) concept of differentiation of self and Eriksons (1950/1963) psychosocial stages of development. Three hundred and fourteen university undergraduates completed the Measure of Psychosocial Development (MPD; Hawley, 1988) and the Differentiation of Self Inventory (DSI; Skowron & Friedlander, 1998). Multiple regression analyses indicated that differentiation level is significantly predictive of psychosocial development. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Oedipus and insight

Insight is a core concept in psychoanalytic theory. The Oedipus myth has been a central metaphor in the evolution of psychoanalytic theory, particularly the psychoanalytic theory of development. Similarly, Sophocles' drama, its relation to the myth, and its repeated reinterpretation throughout the ages provide a valuable metaphor for our understanding of the role of insight in psychoanalysis and in development. We may have underestimated the importance of insight in normal development while oversimplifying its significance as an agent of therapeutic change.     

Murdered father; dead father: Revisiting the Oedipus complex1

This paper recovers the notion of the sacrifice of sexuality as the central, tragic, element of the oedipal structure. This notion has been largely abandoned in the psychoanalytic literature that has tended to reduce the oedipal structure to processes of exclusion. The paper traces the development of the theoretical and clinical transformations of Freud ’s ideas on the role of the father and suggests that they allow us to more fully comprehend the Oedipus complex proposed by Freud. A paradox is explored: the killing of the father is, in Freud ’s view, the requirement for the creation of the social order which, from then on, prohibits all killings. The father, however, has to be killed metaphorically only, as the actual exclusion of the father lies at the origin of so many psychopathologies from violence to the psychoses and perversions. The paper analyses the fundamental asymmetry that is present in the Oedipal structure and suggests that the three elements of the oedipal triangle constitute the law (of the dead father, that institutes the sacrifice of sexuality), desire (for the lost object) and identification (with both father and mother). Two clinical examples are discussed. In the first, one can identify a perverse structure in which the father has been murdered; in the second, there is a progressive construction of the dead (symbolic) father in the analytic process.