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PubMed2005

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.

Aggression↗
PubMed1987

Effects of oedipal triumph caused by collapse or death of the rival parent.

It is suggested that the threat of castration at the phallic-oedipal phase results in repression, effecting no change in the unconscious fantasy, that the resolution of the Oedipus complex depends on developments during latency and adolescence, and that during this period one of the determinants impeding the resolution may be the collapse or death of the rival parent. Death of the oedipal rival results in a confusion of the unconscious wish with an external happening. The child, unable to cope with the consequent guilt, resorts to repression. Thus, the critical aspects of the oedipal triumph remain potentially operative in the unconscious, hindering the patient's functioning in all closely associated areas. Three clinical illustrations of oedipal triumph are described to indicate some of the psychodynamic issues that arise in the analysis of such patients. Of particular importance are: the concept of reality testing; differential adaptation to the unconscious sense of guilt; the varying degrees of resistance evidenced in the analysis of such patients; and the impact of oedipal determinants in differential outcome of bereavement.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Oedipal determinants in differential outcome of bereavement.

According to psychoanalytic theory, a bereaved individual's prior relationship with the lost person affects his vulnerability to bereavement. Freud attributed the vulnerability to the intensity of ambivalence, and Fenichel saw Oedipal rivalry as one example of that ambivalence. It is argued that, after the death of a parent, reality testing, crucial to the resolution of the Oedipus complex, is disrupted differently for children of the same sex, from those of the opposite sex. Based on Freud's and Fenichel's clinical observations, the effects of disrupted reality testing were transformed into a testable hypothesis. The predictions were validated by testing them against the data supplied by patients before they had any professional contact, when two-thirds of bereaved psychotherapy patients exhibited different effects when the deceased parent was of the same sex, from when he/she was of the opposite sex. A majority of the same-sex children develop an unconscious sense of guilt, which blocks their expression of Oedipal attitudes towards both parents and which attacks their capacity to function adequately at work, and in their sex-linked roles; while the opposite-sex children maintain their preference for the dead parent, aversion to the alive one, and have idealized expectations of their lovers or spouses.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Masochism and the inner mother.

My understanding and treatment of patients with severe masochistic features has evolved and changed radically over the last fifteen years. My work with John and his subsequent life led me to search for new techniques and eventually to the discovery of a different way of understanding and treating these patients. I analyzed John in accord with the classical Freudian formulation of masochism. The paternal transference was central and-while a maternal transference and work with the residues of his experience with his mother were present and partially analyzed-the real power of the inner mother was not touched. It was only when I saw him years later in a near-moribund state that I realized the centrality of what we had not analyzed: the attachment to a punishing inner mother. This led me to conceptualize masochism in a new way. Of central importance in the formation of severe masochism is the relationship between an indifferent, possessive, or rejecting mother and a helpless child in the earliest years, before object constancy. This is a time when the child is unable to differentiate between self and mother. What results is a preverbal conviction that they are ungrateful or "bad" if they think, feel, or behave differently than the mother. This leads to a powerful and rigid attachment to this early mother, internalized as a punishing inner mother. This is the precursor of masochism, not a regression from the Oedipus complex. The child will tolerate physical and mental suffering to remain attached to the needed-even though pain inducing-mother. If the child is not attached, he feels helpless and fears survival. This attachment and fear is internalized and becomes unconscious as development proceeds. Eventually, what is observed in adult patients is a person who is sensitive to others, but unable to be sensitive to him/herself. Awareness of the importance and power of the attachment to the punishing inner mother enables the analyst to hear and perceive masochistic material with a shifted focus. This shifted focus naturally leads to different psychoanalytic treatment techniques throughout the analytic process. Two other cases of masochism are used to illustrate the techniques and course of their analytic processes with this "inner mother" focus. The psychoanalytic understanding of many forms of disturbance has shifted from the oedipal period to the early years in recent years. There is also a corresponding emphasis on the actual experiences with early figures, most prominently the mother. The particular dynamics I have described is part of this general trend.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Individuation of women.

The period between 30 and 40 years of age is probably the normal time developmentally for women to complete the individuation from their mothers. Because of the change of object from the primary object (mother) to the secondary object (father), as well as the lack of a narcissistic triumph over the mother comparable to that of a boy's penis, a woman's psychosexual development is more difficult and prolonged. The girl must resolve her attachment to the omnipotent mother and work through her Oedipus complex by deidealizing the father, recognizing that her anal-sadistic impulses do not castrate men, before she can completely individuate. Only then does she become an autonomous, complete woman. Passive-dependency in women is not a mature adult state, as several authors hold, but a partially resolved individuation from the mother, now transferred onto men. Becoming attached to men, idealizing them, they devalue themselves in order not to regress to the omnipotent preoedipal mother. Adulthood (30-40 years) is the time when this resolution can occur because there have been sufficient narcissistic achievements for the woman, enough distance from the actual preoedipal mother, and an opportunity to observe that their own anal-sadistic impulses toward men have not castrated or destroyed them, as well as an opportunity to see men as fallible and human. This is a reason so many woman return to school and begin careers in their 30s. This incomplete resolution is also a reason for fewer original discoveries and creative contributions by women than by men during the course of history. As society changes, this special difficulty for women to individuate may change as well, but I would predict that such change would not be as much as one might expect because of the unique psychosexual development of women.

Achievement↗
PubMed2005

Missing what was true: problems of seeing and knowing in Henry James's The wings of the dove.

The author examines a central theme in this late novel by Henry James in relation to current psychoanalytic ideas that link the Oedipus complex with the child's developing perception of reality (both psychic and external), specifically through the experience of seeing and being seen. Britton visualises the oedipal triangle as a psychic structure through which the child may achieve recognition not only of its parents' sexual relationship, from which it is excluded, but also of itself being observed by one parent while the child is with the other. Thus, it both observes and is observed. The differing perspectives achieved--of subjectivity and objectivity--promote the perception of objective reality, as the world of relationships grows and becomes more complex. James captures with great subtlety and penetration the experience of three characters living out a symbolic oedipal relationship in which the truth is evaded or perverted. A young couple in love exploit the situation of a dying heiress whose vulnerability is intensified by her reluctance to acknowledge the truth about their relationship. At the same time, she shrinks from the gaze of others and consigns herself to isolation and ultimate despair. The author presents three significant scenes in which seeing and being seen are central to the development. In each, the dying woman is forced to face, if momentarily, her exclusion from the sexual relationship. Increasingly this connects with her approaching death--but also with the anguished recognition that the couple have cruelly befriended her only to betray her. It is suggested that James's late style and novelistic technique require the reader to tolerate confusion and uncertainty. As the perspective shifts from one protagonist to another, we ourselves are in danger of 'missing what is true' in this characteristic Jamesian scenario, where relationships are gradually perverted by manipulation, evasion and lies. In psychoanalytic theory, this would represent a failure to work through the oedipal situation, where the struggle of the child to face reality is met by a parental relationship that is too weak or too perverse to contain the pain and conflict.

Famous Persons↗
PubMed1998

Electra versus Oedipus. Femininity reconsidered.

The author discusses the arguments in favour of an Electra rather than an Oedipus complex to describe the vicissitudes of female development and explores the value of using a different paradigm. She concludes that girls do not have to change their primary object to become female. Pathological forms of the normal ambivalent attachment to the mother are vehement rejection, as with Electra, or the opposite, a close symbiotic bond. Both outcomes testify to the centrality of the maternal love object for the girl, and either can lead to masochistic resolutions of the mother-daughter bond. The girl must steer between the Scylla of a symbiotic illusion vis-a-vis her maternal object and the Charybdis of hatred of it. The inner relationship with the maternal image can foster a woman's development, serve as a source of strength or be a well of pathology. Electra illustrates her preoccupation with her mother in a combination of latent approach and manifest avoidance. Women do turn to their male object of desire, not instead of, but in addition to their first love object, the mother. In healthy development, not the inner mother, but the childhood fantasy of the phallic mother is given up, allowing the difference between the parents to be recognised and genuine heterosexual desire established. Female heterosexuality will always be accompanied by a strong homosexual undercurrent.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Superego formation, adolescent transformation, and the adult neurosis.

The superego is heir to the Oedipus complex but has a much larger developmental legacy which includes preoedipal precursors and the influence of latency and adolescence. The superego continues to change in function and content throughout life, and radical transformation in adolescence may result in developmental discontinuity as well as core developmental continuity. A case is discussed in which adolescence was overlooked in previous analysis and in which adolescent superego modification had a major impact on the patient's character and his adult neurosis. The developmental significance of adolescence experienced under conditions of social isolation and rejection with forebodings of the Holocaust was unrecognized in sanctioned silence and shared analytic denial. These repeated earlier experiences of silent submission and stifled protest, and the silent suffering of the patient and his family, were an integral part of his humiliating and emasculating adolescent experiences. The intimidated adolescent, threatened from within and without, identified with the aggressor as well as with the victim. Identification with the aggressor and glorified victor contributed to a final adolescent structuralization of a punitive, sadistic superego and a rigidly perfectionistic ego ideal. As an adult, he tended to passive masochistic compliance with diminished self-esteem and unconscious self-denigration. He was prone to shame and guilt, self-criticism, and hidden hypercritical attitudes toward others. The adolescent internalization of aggression, intense castration anxiety, and pervasive narcissistic mortification led to retreat from resolution of revived oedipal conflict and to concomitant detrimental superego alteration. These issues were of major importance for analytic understanding and therapeutic progress.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Oedipus: history, legends, plays, complexes.

A discussion of "Oedipus Was Not the Son of Laius and Jocasta" by Angel Garma, M.D. The thesis that Oedipus was not the son of the Theban royal pair but his Corinthian "foster parents" raises questions as to which Oedipus is under discussion--one of several different "historical" and legendary accounts, the hero of the plays of Sophocles, or the synthesized "Oedipuses" of millions of individual and ethnic fantasies. Oedipuses, in whom the particular variant described by Dr. Garma can be discerned, certainly abound and should be included among the many possibilities to be considered.

Drama↗
PubMed1998

A parapraxis in Hamlet. A note on the aesthetic genius of William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare has placed a parapraxis in Hamlet's mouth in the soliloquy in Act I. Hamlet says, "But two months dead, nay not so much not two." The slip attributed to Hamlet is of course no slip at all when seen as an aesthetic contrivance of the bard's to suggest the tension between warring aspects of Hamlet's psychology. I argue that Shakespeare's artistic methodology, his aesthetic sleight of hand, so to speak, which layers this complex drama with meanings concealing other meanings, supports Freud's notion that an unconscious latent oedipal drama underlies the whole manifest content, imbuing it with subtle but substantial dramatic tension. The slip of the tongue is not only a window into the unconscious of Hamlet that sheds light on the hero's Oedipus complex and the complexities of his attempted resolutions, it is also an example of Shakespeare's aesthetic subtlety at its most refined.

Authorship↗
PubMed1979

Japanese psychoanalysis and the Ajase complex (Kosawa).

In 1932, Kosawa visited Freud at 19 Berggasse, and submitted to him a paper entitled: 'Two kinds of guilt feelings, the Ajase complex. In his paper, Kosawa expounded his theory of the Ajase complex, rooted in Buddhist thought. He discussed the psychological peculiarity of the Japanese as evidenced by the acceptance of oral dependency toward the mother, the repression of the resentment at the mother and 'guilt feeling over being forgiven' and a need to make restitution for harboring this evil intent. This type of guilt feeling is quite different from the guilt feeling as a fear of punishment which Freud embodied in his theory of the Oedipus complex.

Buddhism↗
PubMed1990

Some issues affecting termination. The treatment of a high-risk adolescent.

This paper addresses some of the difficulties of termination in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a deprived, high-risk adolescent girl, who had two previous treatments. Some commonly referred to issues are explored: termination and the developmental process of adolescence; the relationship between termination, mourning, and internalization; the need for the resolution of the transference and careful monitoring of the countertransference; the importance of the transference resolution of the oedipus complex and related issues concerning preoedipal development and identification; and the consolidation of ego strength.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

[Delusions of witches and suppression of femininity in the Occidental culture from the analytic viewpoint].

In this study, we look into the historical roots of the witch-hunt. For a period of 540 years, between 1241 and 1782, the burning of witches has been well documented. During these 540 years witch-hunts were simply the culmination of a passionate hostility against femininity as such within western culture. As can clearly be seen in the texts of the great medieval theologians, the humiliation and degradation of the female sex--and the condemnation (or diabolization) of sexuality as well as antisexual prejudices--originate from a pre-Christian, heathen-mythological way of thinking, which was largely established by the medieval church as a form of syncretism and the notions of which persist even today. In those days the compulsive regulation of sexuality and the threat of the torments of hell, if one did not obey these rules, initiated the vicious circle of failure, guilt and fear in people's minds and so made it impossible to overcome the Oedipus complex. This regression to the 'anal stage of development' prepared the ground for sadomasochistic destructiveness, which was (supported by superstition) projected outwards onto the so-called witches.

Cultural Characteristics↗
PubMed1980

Paranoia and beating fantasy: an inquiry into the psychoanalytic theory of paranoia.

Psychoanalytic contributions to the theory of paranoia are reviewed. As a primary problem underlying paranoia, this paper emphasizes the importance of beating fantasy associated with a fragile personality structure rather than the theory of repressed homosexuality. Castration anxiety and homosexual conflict may precipitate paranoia, but all levels of psychosexual development and their corresponding danger situations contribute to the transformed fantasy of persecution and punishment; early infantile narcissism, aggression, and sadomasochism are especially important. Severe preoedipal disturbance has contributed to deficient ego development and oedipal resolution. The failure to negotiate separation-individuation is associated with narcissistic arrest and impaired object relations and testing of reality. Ego integration, identity and sexual identity are unstable. Attempts at undoing, repair, or revenge of traumata and narcissistic injury and the maintenance of ego stability and (narcissistic) object relationship are more fundamental than homosexual object choice or the negative Oedipus complex in the understanding of paranoid psychopathology.

Fantasy↗
PubMed1981

Cognitive development and female psychology.

Freud was an astute observer, but his understanding of female psychology was distorted by centration on biological forces, the adult neurosis, libido theory, the Oedipus complex, and male psychology. His views on the role of penis envy, narcissism, and masochism in women, and on the female superego, currently are being updated on the basis of new data emerging out of psychoanalytic investigation and direct observational studies. It has become clear, for example, that core feminine gender identity develops very early and that it is mediated in large part by cognitive development and learning rather than by the impact of the observation of genital differences between the sexes. The little girl's level of cognitive organization does not permit her at first to construct logical, consistent categories of female and male, predicated or coordination of criteria of inclusion and exclusion. She puts girls and women into one group out of intuitive recognition that they "go together" and builds up a view of herself as female on the basis of what she feels as her mother's daughter and what she perceives of the way her parents and other significant object see her. Her mother's feelings about her, about herself, and about females in general influence her greatly, and her father's responses to and expectations of her have an important impact on her self-image and self-esteem. Her representation of herself as female at first does not necessarily take genital differences between the sexes into account. The discovery, some time in the second or third year, that the genitals of boys and girls are different from one another presents the girl with a number of problems, however. Her cognitive organization makes it extremely difficult for her to apprehend her complex, incompletely demarcated, and to a large extent internal, unobservable, and impalpable sexual organs. Her initial conclusion is that she lacks desirable body parts which are possessed by other beings. Because of the narcissistic-exhibitionistic libidinal organization of that period of life, this represents a painful narcissistic injury. The intensity of the girl's castration reaction and the degree to which she will be able to overcome it in the course of further development are determined by multiple internal and external developmental factors. Masochism, narcissistic vulnerability, and penis envy are neither limited to the female sex nor normal outcomes of female development. Where they are prominent features in the psychopathology of female patients, it is insufficient to interpret them as emanating from penis envy as a bedrock, primal cause. Detailed clinical examples are presented to illustrate the thesis that through exploration and explication of the multiple sources of such symptomatology in a female analysand is the most effective way of relieving the symptomatology and releasing the potential for emotional growth.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Freud, Fliess, and the nasogenital reflex: did a look into the nose let us see the mind?

Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin nose and throat surgeon, and Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, collaborated to treat one of Freud's earliest patients, Emma Eckstein. The basis for the treatment was their belief in the "Nasogenital Reflex," a widely accepted theory that has disappeared from the literature of otolaryngology. The outcome of Emma's treatment may have profoundly altered the history of psychiatry, by suggesting the role of the unconscious and the existence of the Oedipus complex.

Austria↗
PubMed1980

On fathering (the nature and functions of the father role). Part II: Conceptualization of fathering.

The scientific study of fathering has been somewhat neglected, perhaps because the father role is hardly constant even within a particular culture and is subject to very great fluctuations indeed from culture to culture. In that respect the study of fathering is much more difficult than the study of mothering. Work often subsumed under the heading of "attachment theory" has shown that the mother-infant and mother-child relationships have some cross-cultural constancy and may even be described as a bio-social "given". Four methods of data collection are described and reviewed: studies of adults partially or fully deprived of adequate fathering during their childhoods; direct studies of father-infant and father-child interaction; "in-depth" psychoanalytic studies of individual psychopathology in relation to that individual's relationship to a father; and introspection and personal observation. Each of these four avenues of data collection offers certain advantages as well as certain disadvantages which are reviewed with examples from available literature. In studying the importance of the father role there is a tendency to study the importance of fathering to children, ignoring that fathering is clearly important to the psychological development and further growth of the father. That there is a psychopathology of the process of fatherhood seems obvious on reflection, and data bearing on that psychopathology are reviewed. The importance of fathering to infants and children can be reviewed according to the three areas of psychic activity: primary creativity, the basic fault, and the Oedipus conflict. In the area of primary creativity we can study the importance of fathering to infants in terms of fantasied fathers and part-time fathers, and the prenatal role of father as mother facilitator. In the area of the basic fault (two-person psychology) we can study the postnatal role of father as mother facilitator, the role of father as mother-surrogate, the pre-oedipal role of father in the determination of gender identity, the role of father in "healing by second intent", and the importance of father in separation-individuation. In the area of the Oedipus conflict (three-person psychology) we can study the role of father in the infant's resolution of the oedipus complex and the development of superego, the importance of father as a role model for post-oedipal identification, the relation of father-absence to anti-social behaviour, the role of father in fostering cognitive and general development and growth, and the role of father in the further formation of adult personality. This two-part concludes with a review of the importance of improved understanding of the father role in clinical work.

Adolescent↗