Chapter 2: To the Lighthouse and the Oedipal Triangle: Impotence,Erotic Degradation,and the Oedipus Complex from Freudian and Self-Psychological Perspectives

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to understand the Ramsay family in To the Lighthouse (Woolf, 1927) from both Freudian and Kohutian self-psychological models. I specifically address the Oedipus conflict and erotic degradation dynamics as a means to explore the broader phenomena of psychical impotence and disintegration. Ultimately, this article reveals that Freud’s understanding of psychical impotence and Kohut’s notion of disintegration are 2 sides of the same coin. Accordingly, a broader, intermediary theoretical understanding of the Oedipal Triangle and its effects is needed.     

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.     

The many faces of self-harm

This paper explores why open dialogue on the subject of erotic transference and countertransference is so difficult and attempts to offer an understanding of these phenomena which might enable counsellors to work more confidently with it. It also briefly examines the author's own research on therapists' thoughts and experiences of erotic transference, seeking to differentiate between inappropriate sexual contact between clients and therapists and the experience of erotic transference in the context of therapy as a reworking of the Oedipal relationship. Case examples illustrating the experience of countertransference within the therapeutic situation and how its presence can act as a help or a hindrance are offered. The paper concludes by examining the need to reflect on the erotic transference in therapeutic work and proposes its usefulness as a therapeutic tool. Suggestions about how the erotic transference can be managed to therapeutic effect are also explored.     

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.     

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.     

The threat of male-to-female erotic transference

Vignettes from an ongoing psychoanalysis with a patient, Michael, are presented to illustrate the various dimensions of the erotic transference at different phases of the treatment. The relation to power, the experience and expression of aggression, how these may be organized by gender, and the female analyst's countertransference are discussed as potentially fostering or inhibitory in the development of an erotic transference. Traditional sociocultural gender stereotypes kept alive in fantasy can cause female analysts to subtly foreclose the impending threat of an intense erotic transference with male analysands due to a fear of outwardly directed male aggression. It is suggested that the maternal/containing transference can be unconsciously fostered by both analyst and analysand to defensively avoid expression of the aggressivized erotic transference in its full intensity. Similarities and differences in cases of sexual boundary violations with opposite-gender pairings are discussed.     

Can I Touch You Through A Screen? A Discussion of “Video Communication and Transgenerational Shame in the Mother/Daughter Bond”

This discussion elaborates on the complexity that electronically mediated treatment adds to Psychoanalytic work. The author explores the fate of the body in a Skype relationship, with particular attention to dilemmas posed by work with erotic transference when the transgressive excitement of possibility – actual erotic contact between analyst and patient – is absent. Additionally using Goldberg’s understanding of the frame as contact barrier, the author considers Skype as both frame and process and elaborates on limitations posed by Skype in adjusting to the phenomenology of the clinical moment. Ways to vitalize the frame over Skype are suggested. The author’s concerns about Skype treatment with dissociated and traumatized patients are also explored, and unrecognized enactments in Ringel’s work with D are considered, as is the possibility that work over Skype with D may have reified disconnection rather than promoted is intimacy.     

Reclaiming Lost Loves: Transcending Unrequited Desires. Discussion of Davies’ “Oedipal Complexity”

In this discussion I address the multidimensionality embedded within the oedipal phase of development and contend that the elaboration and working through of unrequited oedipal longing within the transference–countertransference matrix is one of the most profound gifts of an analysis. The child’s confrontation with thwarted desire (generationally) for either parent is central to the development of the mind, the personality, and one’s erotic life. I also argue that the experience of oedipal exclusion becomes not solely a response to a generational boundary but to a gender boundary discouraging same-sex love. I speak for retaining a conceptualization of an oedipal complex without losing any of the complexity of individual experience. In describing our oedipal lineages for erotic life as resting upon an interwoven layering of maternal and paternal oedipal desires, my aim is to continue a project to rehabilitate the oedipal concept from heteronormative presumptions and from being (mis)understood in a reductive manner that alienates rather than engages.     

Changes in the magnitude of the eyeblink startle response during habituation of sexual arousal

Modulation of the startle response was used to examine emotional processing of sexual stimulation across trials within a session. Eyeblink startle was elicited by a probe (burst of intense white noise) presented intermittently while men were viewing an erotic film segment. Repeated display of the film segment resulted in a progressive decrease in sexual arousal. Habituation of sexual arousal was accompanied by a reduction over trials in the extent the men felt absorbed when viewing the erotic stimulus and by an increase over trials in the magnitude of the eyeblink startle response. Replacing the familiar stimulus by a novel erotic stimulus increased in sexual arousal and absorption and reduced startle (novelty effect), while dishabituation was evident for all three response measures when the familiar stimulus was reintroduced. This pattern of results indicates that with repeated presentation an erotic stimulus is experienced not only as less sexually arousing but also as less appetitive and absorbing. The question of whether habituation of sexual arousal is mediated by changes in attentional and affective processing over trials is discussed, as are clinical contexts in which eyeblink startle can be used in studying aspects of sexual functioning.     

Braving the erotic field in the treatment of adolescents*

Abstract

The psychoanalytic literature on erotic transference and countertransference in adolescence is notably sparse, despite the centrality of the developing sexual body/mind. Erotic feelings in the consulting room with an adolescent can feel taboo, causing the analyst to avoid the immediacy of these feelings. Excessive timidity on the part of the analyst can limit the growth of the capacity for containment of sexual feelings and yield what I term ‘erotic insufficiency’ in our work with adolescents. I offer clinical material from a period of erotic transference and countertransference with a 12-year-old boy to consider these ideas. Further, I suggest that the very terms ‘erotic transference’ and ‘erotic countertransference’ can feel defensively remote and antiseptic. I suggest that ‘erotic field’ better captures the subtle, nuanced interplay of feelings.     

Erotic Transference and Its Relationship to Childhood Seduction

The phenomenon of an erotic transference has long been a difficult, if not mysterious, process within clinical psychoanalysis. Traditionally, the development of an erotic transference has been viewed as a negative clinical event fueled by the analyst's countertransference reaction. A much neglected dimension, the relationship between childhood seduction and the development of an erotic transference, will be introduced and examined. In three clinical cases our data suggest that actual sexual abuse in childhood is a causal factor in the manifestation of an erotic transference in the clinical interaction of an analysis.     

Sexual orientations in perspective

This article presents a new paradigm for understanding the complexity of human sexual, affectional, and erotic attractions--commonly known as sexual orientation. This new paradigm recognizes that there is great diversity among sexual orientations, erotic and emotional attractions, behaviors, and identities and that there are complex interrelations among these dimensions. Sexual orientation is determined by multiple influences, including a wide range of sociocultural factors. The development of sexual orientation is arrived at through multiple pathways. Individuals with the same sexual orientation may have little else in common. Thus, a model of sexual orientation is presented that is based on multiplicity, not sameness, and that examines the overlapping identities and statuses of culture, gender, age, race, ethnicity, class, disability, and sexuality.     

Love Between Embodiment and Spirituality: Jean‐Luc Marion and John Paul II on Erotic Love

While theological discourse on love traditionally bifurcates between love as a body‐bound passion and its superior and disembodied spiritual counterpart, a growing number of accounts have recently challenged the traditional division arguing for the fundamental unity of the phenomenon of love. Could such a dichotomy be overcome if one reversed the conventional hierarchy between bodily erotic and intellectual agapeic love and made erotic love between man and woman the fundamental paradigm of all kinds of loves? Could the reversal recuperate the affective aspect that has traditionally been downplayed? An answer to these questions is explored through an imaginary dialogue between Jean‐Luc Marion's phenomenology of one‐way erotic love and John Paul II's theology of embodied love.     

Listening to the Erotic Commentary on Paper by Eric Sherman

In this commentary I examine homoerotic countertransference within the context of the analyst's erotic countertransference experience. Discussing male analysts' difficulties receiving and experiencing homoerotic feelings as a function of their dominant erotic desires (along gender lines), I propose both cognitive and affective explanations to illuminate their defenses. I suggest that Sherman's erotic countertransference is best understood when viewed as a product of both induced feelings emanating from his patient's dissociated sexual abuse and also his anxiety and shame in response to particular relational configurations with his patient that arouse him. Finally, I point to the site of the transgressive as integral to the construction of erotic desire and suggest shifts that need to occur in the erotic subjectivity of this dyad so that the treatment can move forward.     

Desire and the female analyst

The literature on erotic transference and countertransference between female analyst and male patient is reviewed and discussed. It is known that female analysts are less likely than their male colleagues to act out sexually with their patients. It has been claimed that a) male patients do not experience sustained erotic transferences, and b) female analysts do not experience erotic countertransferences with female or male patients. These views are challenged and it is argued that, if there is less sexual acting out by female analysts, it is not because of an absence of eros in the therapeutic relationship. The literature review covers material drawn from psychoanalysis, feminist psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, as well as some sociological and cultural sources. It is organized under the following headings: the gender of the analyst, sexual acting out, erotic transference, maternal and paternal transference, gender and power, counter-transference, incest taboo - mothers and sons and sexual themes in the transference.     

The Oedipus Complex and the Role of Religion in the Neurosis of Father Hunger

This essay discusses Freud's writings on the Oedipus Complex to illumine his distinction between a boy's object-choice and identification with his father. Explains why object-choice is relinquished in favor of identification in the demolition of the Oedipus Complex. Identifies homophobia as an effect of this outcome, and indicates how the Judaeo-Christian religion is implicated in the fact that love between boys and their fathers is unrealized, and thus why men are inflicted with the neurosis of father hunger.     

Bare’ing it all for the Camera: Women’s Experience of Having Erotic Photographs Taken

One area in which a change in women’s sexual behavior has been observed is in the growing number of women who are having erotic photographs taken of themselves by professional photographers. The current research is an attempt to learn more about this unstudied phenomenon. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 women who have had erotic photographs taken by a professional photographer. The interviews were subjected to thematic analysis. The women described the erotic photography experience as having positive implications, such as increased body esteem and feelings of empowerment, as well as giving the women the ability to see themselves as sexual and an opportunity to celebrate their bodies. Having erotic photos taken also provided women with the opportunity to create a sexual image in a photograph on their own terms. The findings provide insight into the changing nature of attitudes about women’s sexuality.