The selfobject as immortal self

This paper begins by defining the selfobject and elucidating its role in the structuring of the self for each unique individual. The self becomes a repository of the memory images of emotional experiences with significant others. This process of internalization through which the self is continually nourished, and which enables it to grow, goes on throughout life. However, as a case example illustrates, the ability to internalize a selfobject depends on the ability to receive and to give love. Once the selfobject is incorporated into the self of “an other” it is perpetuated in another, is perpetuated, analogous to the transmission of genetic material. Each individual carries others within himself or herself and has the potentiality for continuing to live within the self of another. This is a kind of immortality. She is the author of many articles and books, most recentlyAppointment in Vienna (St. Martin's Press).     

The other side of Oedipus

The Oedipus complex has been understood as a series of conflicts between feelings of love and hate (sexuality and aggression) in the relationship between the child and his/her parents. This article presents a different view, defining oedipal struggles as conflicts between love and care, sexual desires and self- and object-preservative needs. The crucial conflict the child has to deal with is: to love the one and nevertheless to preserve the other (the rival). Further, the author distinguishes between monolithic conflicts, which are conflicts between different objects of one drive's strivings, and binary conflicts, which involve the objects of both basic drives. In three illustrative examples, she shows that monolithic conflicts can indicate a regressive movement, while binary conflicts tend to foster a progression in the analytic work.     

苏轼的仙气

千古名篇《前赤壁赋》中写道:“白露横江,水光接天。纵一苇之所如,凌万顷之茫然。浩浩乎如冯虚御风,而不知其所止;飘飘乎如遗世独立,羽化而登仙。”苏轼好道,对神仙道教充满了无限向往,希求进入神仙境界直言不讳。《留题仙都观》吟道:“真人厌世不回顾,世间生死如朝暮。学仙度世岂无人,餐霞绝粒长辛苦。安得独从逍遥君。泠然乘风驾浮云,超世无有我独行。”也表达了同样的思想感情,乐意登上神仙境界。正如《左庵词话》中的评价,“此老不特兴会高骞,直觉有仙气缥缈于毫端。”读苏轼的作品,我们确实感到仙气缥缈,如风如雾,与长歌曼韵相伴。那么…     

Oedipus matters

Abstract

Using experience of working clinically in South Africa, a powerfully racialized society, this paper argues that the Oedipal period, associated in psychoanalytic theory with the formation of gender identity and the shaping of sexual desire, is also a period during which perception of racial identity affects entry into the social world. During this pivotal developmental period, marked by awareness of encounters with gender difference and experiences of erotic exclusion and inclusion, children also become aware of racial differences and their effects on class, privilege and custom. The paper suggests that the anxieties, competitive energy, hope, hate and dread that accompany the child's Oedipal strivings are frequently compounded by encounters with forms of social difference both in and beyond the family. Assumption of a gendered identity, in many contexts, is inseparable from the conscious and unconscious habitation of a racialized identity, which emerges during exactly the same period. Just as our gender identity is both simple and infinitely variable and complex, our awareness of our race is also on one level simple – ‘black/white’ – and on another extremely complex. The paper argues that the working through of Oedipal anxieties will cast light and shadow on every intimate relationship, and will also determine whether other kinds of difference, including racial difference, are met with fear or competitiveness, idealization or denigration, joyful curiosity or withdrawal. The argument draws on post-Freudian, relational and self-psychoanalytic theory, and emphasizes the variability of developmental paths and their construction in powerful social, economic and political contexts, all of which have fundamental effects on biology and bodies. Major influences on the argument are psychoanalytic gender theorists, specifically Jessica Benjamin and Jody Messler Davies, and the work of Franz Fanon.     

Deconstructing Oedipus

There is little doubt that historically the Oedipus complex has been central to psychoanalytic understandings of human growth and development, and also in understanding relationships. This paper argues that it is still powerful today, whether consciously adhered to or not, because the Oedipus complex is a lens through which we, consciously or unconsciously, view gender relationships, sexuality and also the structure of society. Reasons for questioning the Oedipus complex are outlined, then four ways in which the Oedipus complex has been responded to are explored. The paper pays particular attention what might be called a ‘deconstruction’ of the Oedipus complex, and suggests that this approach invites psychotherapists to do some hard work in the consulting room.     

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”.     

Revitalizing Oedipus

Abstract

Three steps are presented to revitalize the concept of the Oedipus complex and to apply this revitalized concept to clinical work. First, a comprehensive child developmental map is constructed of the road from the early infantile genital phase to the achievement of the full Oedipus stage, integrating the diverse components of self, gender, libido, aggression, ego, superego, object relationship and adaptation. Second, specific developmental lines (e.g., separation-individuation) are magnified in a given patient for close examination to explore the relationship to that patient's overall oedipal conflicts. Third, a reciprocal interaction is fostered between the evolving conceptual framework and the emerging clinical data. The paper contains two in-depth case examples to illustrate the clinical application of these ideas.     

The Alchemical Oedipus: Re-Visioning the Myth

The Oedipus myth is foundational to depth psychology due to Freud’s use of Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex in the creation of psychoanalysis. But analytical psychology’s engagement with the myth has been limited despite the importance Jung also places upon it. The absence of a developed Jungian response to Oedipus means the myth’s psychologically constructive elements have been overlooked in favour of reductive Freudian interpretations. I examine whether analytical psychology can fruitfully re-engage with Oedipus by reinterpreting his story as a paternal rebirth. This is achieved by reincorporating those parts of the myth that occur before and after the period portrayed in Oedipus Rex. Such a move reintegrates Oedipus’ father, King Laius, into the story and unveils important parallels with the alchemical trope of the king’s renewal by his son. Using Jung’s method of amplification, Oedipus is recast as Laius’ redeemer and identified with the archetype of psychological wholeness, the Self. The contention is that such an understanding of Oedipus supports a clearer recognition of the potentially generative quality of human suffering, restoring to the myth the quality of moral instruction it possessed in antiquity.     

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.     

Oedipus in Gethsemane:

In the history of depth psychology, we often come upon the theme of 'father-son' relationships, which, although initially positive, ultimately become destructive. I submit that repressed homosexual aspects may be responsible for this turn of events and illustrate this hypothesis with archetypal motifs found in Greek and Judaeo-Christian culture.     

La traviata and Oedipus

This paper explores the oedipal themes of Verdi's La Traviata, and proposes that it is his masterly treatment of their complexity which accounts for the psychological power of the opera. It is suggested that a particular quality of this opera lies in its ordinariness: no gross psychopathology is displayed, and yet it is mesmerizing. The claims of the eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman are explored that, in opera, music trumps words when there is a conflict between the apparent meanings of the libretto and the feel of the music, with special reference to the famous duet between Violetta (the ‘fallen woman’ – the traviata) – and her lover's father, Giorgio Germont, in which his harsh condemnation of her as conveyed by the libretto text seems to be softened, indeed quite altered, by the music. Other contradictions between the apparently explicit meaning of the text and the implicit sense of the music are also examined. These conflicts are illuminated by John Steiner's theory of two versions of the Oedipus situation, one paranoid–schizoid and the other depressive, which are contrasted with Grunberger's Oedipal views.     

Oedipus and the Oedipal

Psychoanalysts have assumed that Sophocles can be seen through the lens of Freud, and that the Oedipus complex is about the incest taboo, guilt, and aggression. However, an examination of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (as well as other plays) suggests that these themes are only a part of the central dynamics of the play, perhaps not the most central part. This article describes discrepancies between what Freud sees of oedipal dynamics and the oedipal dynamics at work in Sophocles and suggests possible explanations. A central theme of my discussion is the shame and blindness of Oedipus.