The impulse to infidelity and oedipal splitting

Freud suggested that the child perceives parental intercourse as an act of infi delity by the desired but unfaithful parent. Parental sexual infi delity is felt to be a major narcissistic injury that gives rise to fantasies of revenge. A defensive organization arises to manage this trauma and its attendant revenge fantasies. That organization involves splitting of the desired parent into faithful and unfaithful parts, displacement of hostility on to the rival parent, and identifi cation with the desired but unfaithful parent resulting in the impulse to infi delity. Romantic fantasies of escape and rescue from evil rivals provide guilt free ways of satisfying fantasies of oedipal revenge. In those fantasies the evil rival is turned into an injured third party who gets his or her just deserts as the romantic couple gets to live happily ever after. This defensive organization may embroil patients in complicated love triangles as adults for which they may seek treatment. Analyzing the repudiated narcissistic wound of parental infi delity and the disguised revenge fantasies that defend against that wound may provoke narcissistic rage towards the analyst as a moralistic, possessive, controlling, envious, and spoiling oedipal parent.     

The role of pre‐oedipal and oedipal factors in psychic life1

The Oedipus complex, a basic concept in Freudian theory, is an essential factor in the constitution of the human subject. It plays a key role in the structuring of the personality and in the orientation of desire. It is the oedipal triangular structure that precedes the pre‐oedipal situation (in a logical, not chronological, order), and not vice versa. The oedipal structure exists before the infant's biological birth. It is present in the parents' desires and identifi cations, which inexorably fall upon each subject. That is why the author believes that it is necessary to leave behind a solipsistic reading of the nuclear complex of neuroses‐a reading that is based solely on Oedipus's drive nucleus‐and take a joint and comprehensive view of Laius's and Jocasta's histories and traumatic experiences, which were invested in their son. Among these three vertices, a dynamic set of forces emerges whereby a basic, original unconscious fi eld phantasy is created that bears a unique narrative and an invisible and hermetic web made of passions and beliefs, scandals and secrets. This phantasy gives shape to an unrepeatable oedipal structure in each subject, a structure that articulates with the effects of the narcissistic and fraternal dynamic and may determine the subject's fate. This paper develops the following issues: 1) Oedipus, victimizer or victim? 2) the generational confrontation as dynamic fi eld; and 3) neuroses with a preponderance of dualistic relationships.     

Freud's Little Oedipus: Hans as exception to the oedipal rule

Freud's "The Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy" is regarded by Freud and by analytic readers and commentators as a prototype of his conception of the oedipus complex. A literary methodology is used to show that the interpretation of the oedipus complex at work in Freud's text in fact differs from Freud's standard view of it. While studying the paper as text, not as case report, may obscure or distort some clinical matters, it is valuable in that it makes legible a sort of theoretical unconscious in the text. In contrast to Freud's typically tragic view of the oedipus complex (in the tradition of ancient Greek tragedy), the Hans study evokes a comic vision (in the tradition of Greek New Comedy). This comic vision allows Hans a happy imaginative ending to the oedipal dilemma, challenges certain epistemic pretensions, and emphasizes the oedipus complex as a set of abiding existential questions. Given the deep link between Freud"s oedipus concept and a tragic view of human life, this departure in the Hans paper is a fascinating anomaly.     

Infantile sexuality, gender identity, and obstacles to oedipal progression

Contrary to when it was first proposed, infantile sexuality nowadays is accepted as an important part of child development. However, Freud's views on masculine primacy and feminine inferiority are seen to be incomplete and inaccurate not only because they over-emphasize sexuality and sexual anatomy, but also because they neglect aggression, object relations, ego and superego functioning, and the sense of self. Infantile sexuality is therefore reconsidered within the broader perspective of gender identity. Within this broader perspective, normal and aberrant sexual development is discussed, and new ideas are offered about familiar concepts such as castration anxiety and penis envy.     

From countertransference to "passion"

Bion's ideas may be extended to describe an emotional phenomenology of the analyst's subjectivity and a methodology which helps differentiate countertransference enactments from fuller emotional participation. Bion called the process of integrating and utilizing one's most basic and important emotions to make meaning, "passion." The analyst's primal feelings--of love, hate, and curiosity--serve as a central organizer of meaning in the analytic interaction. These feelings involve pain, and to the extent the analyst unconsciously decides to evade or foreclose the evolution of the feelings, such that they remain unintegrated in the thinking process, the analyst is liable to become mired in repetitive transference-countertransference experiences without establishing fresh meaning. A case example illustrates the relevance of "passion" to contemporary relational theory and practice.     

Grievance: the underlying oedipal configuration

In this paper the author describes some of the clinical features encountered in patients who seem to 'nurture' a persistent grievance. He gives clinical examples, and discusses the nature of the powerful underlying dynamics. He suggests that contained within the patient's grievance is a set of phantasies that constitute the expression of his fear and hatred of reality, particularly the reality of the oedipal situation, the child's relationship to the creative parental couple, which Money-Kyrle (1968, 1971) has characterised as an essential element of 'the facts of life'. The phantasies the patient has evolved serve to protect him from envy and jealousy, anxiety and guilt. The primitive oedipal phantasies on which the grievance rests also contribute to the excitement and gratification that are characteristic of the grievance. The analysis of the underlying state of mind helps to account for the persistent grip the grievance has on the patient, and the way this interferes with development.     

Addressing the oedipal dilemma in Macbeth

Macbeth has been viewed as a play about the oedipal crime of patricide. This paper elaborates on this approach by elucidating the oedipal and preoedipal themes in the roles played by women in the drama, particularly in Macbeth's relationships with Lady Macbeth and with the weird sisters. Differences between Macbeth and Macduff's responses to the oedipal dilemma are also defined. An understanding of these themes provides the context for understanding the underlying hostility toward women implicit throughout the play.     

The evolved function of the oedipal conflict

Freud based his oedipal theory on three clinical observations of adult romantic relationships: (1) Adults tend to split love and lust; (2) There tend to be sex differences in the ways that men and women split love and lust; (3) Adult romantic relationships are unconsciously structured by the dynamics of love triangles in which dramas of seduction and betrayal unfold. Freud believed that these aspects of adult romantic relationships were derivative expressions of a childhood oedipal conflict that has been repressed. Recent research conducted by evolutionary psychologists supports many of Freud’s original observations and suggests that Freud’s oedipal conflict may have evolved as a sexually selected adaptation for reproductive advantage. The evolution of bi-parental care based on sexually exclusive romantic bonds made humans vulnerable to the costs of sexual infidelity, a situation of danger that seriously threatens monogamous bonds. A childhood oedipal conflict enables humans to better adapt to this longstanding evolutionary problem by providing the child with an opportunity to develop working models of love triangles. On the one hand, the oedipal conflict facilitates monogamous resolutions by creating intense anxiety about the dangers of sexual infidelity and mate poaching. On the other hand, the oedipal conflict in humans may facilitate successful cheating and mate poaching by cultivating a talent for hiding our true sexual intentions from others and even from ourselves. The oedipal conflict in humans may be disguised by evolutionary design in order to facilitate tactical deception in adult romantic relationships.     

“组织学习障碍”研究

组织要进行真正的学习 ,就必须克服“组织学习障碍”。“组织学习障碍”分为“单环学习障碍”和“双环学习障碍”两大类。为了克服“组织学习障碍”,首先必须消除组织的习惯性防御机制 ,然后进行“学习型组织”的各项修炼。     

Obstacles to Widening Biosample Research

Science and Engineering Ethics - Switzerland has an excellent culture of medical research and is a melting pot for medical experts with international expertise. Nevertheless, as in other countries,...     

Negative oedipal transference of a male patient to his female analyst during the termination phase

There has been some debate in the literature concerning the ability of the male patient to experience his paternal, and particularly negative oedipal, transference feelings directly toward his female analyst. In this context, the author describes paternal transference manifestations evident throughout her male patient's analysis, and presents detailed process material from the termination phase. At this time the patient's obsessional neurosis was revived in the context of setting a termination date, and transference to the negative oedipal father could be clearly demonstrated. The paper illustrates that even the negative oedipal component of the paternal transference can be experienced directly in the male patient/female analyst, dyad, and interpretation of this material can bring it into clearer focus. The author discusses some possible influences of her sex on the timing and intensity of the material.