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…     

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.     

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.     

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.     

The lethic phallus: rethinking the misery of Oedipus

The author rethinks Sophocles' dramas Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus with a special focus on how self- and object-preservative drives are expressed in the protagonist's thoughts, feelings, and actions. What endangered Oedipus' survival at the beginning of his life-the planned infanticide-becomes the disease that later befalls his kingdom and finally culminates in his self-mutilation, which entitles the blinded Oedipus to be cared for by Antigone until he dies. The concept of the lethic phallus demonstrates how trauma and the resultant failure in structuring the lethic energies of the preservative and death drives can result in a specific pathology in which disease is used as a trophy and a means to bind the object in an ongoing caretaker relationship.     

Reading Loewald: Oedipus reconceived

Loewald's 'Waning of the Oedipus complex' is a watershed paper in the history of psychoanalytic thought. By means of a close reading of Loewald's paper, the author frames, discusses and clinically illustrates his understanding of Loewald's reconceptualization of the Oedipus complex. The principal elements of Loewald's reformulation include: 1) the idea that the tension between the pressures of parental infl uence and the child's innate need to establish his own capacities for originality lies at the core of the Oedipus complex; 2) the notion that oedipal parricide is driven, most fundamentally, by the child's 'urge for emancipation.' Parricide involves a revolt against, and an appropriation of, parental authority; 3) the idea that the child atones for the act of parricide by internalizing a transformed version of the child's experience of the oedipal parents. This results in an alteration of the very structure of the child's self (i.e. in the formation of the superego as the agency of autonomy and responsibility); 4) the notion that, in the child's appropriation of parental authority, he in reality 'kill[s] something vital in them [thus] contributing to their dying' and to the succession of generations; and 5) the idea that the incestuous component of the Oedipus complex involves, in health, the creation of a transitional incestuous object relationship which, over the course of one's life, mediates the interplay between undifferentiated and differentiated aspects of self and relatedness to others. The author concludes with a comparison of Freud's and Loewald's conceptions of the Oedipus complex.