Whose Genitalia Are Involved In The Dissolution Of The Oedipus Complex In Boys?

This paper addresses the issue of whose genitalia are involved in the dissolution of the castration complex in boys. Freud and his followers suggested several different possibilities which are elaborated herein, and these alternative models are discussed from the perspective of psychological research regarding children's emergent gender identity and their awareness of genital differences. The reviewed data show that contrary to Freudian theory, preschool children's emergent gender identity is not dependent on their awareness of genital differences. However, preschoolers with younger siblings, primarily opposite gender ones, evidence greater understanding of genital differences, as Freud suggested. The discussion emphasizes the importance of children's family constellation and their awareness of self-other similarity and dissimilarity in the development of their gender identity.

[Failure in the construction of the ego in confessional poetry - Sylvia Plath and Attila Jozsef].

The two poets, an American Sylvia Plath and a Hungarian, Attila József were separated by a quarter of century of time, they lived and worked in different spaces, cultures, but both created in their poetry a radically new style of self-expression, called confessional poetry. The "Belated Lament" of Attila József was written in 1936, and in the following year its author - after repeated earlier attempts - committed suicide. The "Daddy" of Sylvia Plath was written in 1962. She, again, after several attempts, killed herself the following year. They both talk about the powerful effect of the disruptive effect of unresolved Oedipal memories, both are deeply concerned with mourning of the Oedipal other a father and a mother (who died several decades before), and they also construct the death of their own. They both present themselves as an unsuccessful Oedipus and articulate a disturbing and disruptive arrival to Kolonos.

Psychopathia sexualis: sexuality in old and new psychoanalysis.

The different conceptions of sexuality in classical and contemporary psychoanalysis are explored. Freud's misguided theories of sexual or libidinal drives and the Oedipus complex are shown to be defenses against his own traumatic attachment history. The evidence for this is found in a review of his childhood and self-analysis, and further illustrated with the cases reported in the Studies on Hysteria and elsewhere. Modern views of sex turn these old theories on their heads, demonstrating that sexual fantasies and actions are phenomena, unique to each individual, that are themselves in need of explanation. These radically different conceptions of sexuality are illustrated with 3 case histories.

Home, bitter sweet home. A psychoanalytic reading.

The paper offers a psychoanalytic reading of the popular TV series "Homeland." The series' manifest content centers on terrorism and counterterrorism. From a dynamic perspective, the viewer is invited to mistrust what is represented, and focus on the tension between what is projected on the screen and what remains hidden in the narrative's intriguing subtexts. These are: the choreography of internal and external reality, a recurrent theme of longing for the absent, idealized pre-Oedipal father, and attempts to transform memories of horror.

Dreams, katharsis and anxiety.

Over the centuries, the importance and the nature of the relationship of "inside" and "outside" in human experience have shifted, with consequences for notions of mind and body. This paper begins with dreams and healing in the Asklepian tradition. It continues with Aristotle's notions of psuche and how these influenced his conception of katharsis and tragedy. Jumping then to the 17th century, we will consider Descartes' focus on dreams in his theories of thinking. Finally, we will turn explicitly to Freud's use of dreams in relation to his theories of anxiety, of psychic processes and of the Oedipus Complex.

[Two or three of us? Case study of a psychoanalytic therapy of a girl between the oedipal phase and the latency period]. / Zu zweit oder zu dritt?--Fallbericht der psychoanalytischen Therapie eines Mädchens zwischen ödipaler Phase und Latenzalter.

This article presents a case study of a psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a girl at the age of five to eight years with a predisposition to somatization and anxious-compulsive symptoms in the transition from the oedipal phase to the latency period. In the diagnostic phase, the concept of scenic understanding is used. In the representation of treatment, the process of transference and countertransference in the relationship between the therapist and the patient has been placed in the foreground. The therapeutic process is understood as a general movement in which patient and therapist are performing together towards the treatment goals. Basics of this are both, the working alliance and the therapeutic dialogue, which is based on an interactive feedback system which serves the uncovering of blocked development efforts. The treatment technique is also oriented in terms of linguistic expression, abstinence, and interventions to the needs of the development phase of the patient. In the meetings with the parents will be referred to the process of change in the parent-child relationship through the psychotherapy of the child and to the topic of transgenerational transfers of anxieties and emotional blocks.

Radical Freud (Part Two): Freud's Bisexuality Thesis and the Negation of the Oedipus Complex.

The author focuses on bisexuality in a continued analysis of Freud's radical sexual theory. A close reading of texts from Freud's work, in particular "The Ego and the Id," demonstrates how Freud puts forward a bisexuality thesis in parallel and as an alternative to his thesis of the Oedipus complex. This bisexuality thesis is premised on the mechanism of object cathexis and identification by which the ego and superego are formed. The textual excavation is extended back to earlier material by Freud and other authors (Trigant Burrow, Isidor Sadger) to reveal the foundational bedrock of the bisexuality thesis in primary identification. This line of investigation boldly confirms not only Freud's view of the fundamental centrality of bisexuality to human sexuality but also its main consequence, which Freud himself implicitly recognizes, namely, the negation of the Oedipus complex. This argument has ramifications for the theory and clinical practice of psychoanalysis.

Freud's Red Thread: Explorations of the Unconscious Sense of Guilt.

The concept of an "unconscious sense of guilt" bedevils Freud throughout his life, rearing its head in at least twenty-four of his major works and working behind the scenes in many others. In a sense, we can see Freud's oeuvre, and psychoanalysis more generally, as a discourse of unconscious guilt. While Freud frames the oedipus complex as the central defining dynamic of human experience, the unconscious sense of guilt is arguably the underbelly that both precedes and exceeds that complex. By unraveling a range of complexities within Freud's conceptualization of unconscious guilt, we will come to see that guilt is an unavoidable by-product of the human condition, intrinsically interwoven with libidinal desire.

The Crises of Oedipus.

This article describes the various crises of the Oedipus complex. In the beginning, I address the crisis of the first traumatic days when Oedipus was to be abandoned in the wilderness. This early breakdown takes place at what may be denoted as stage zero. During this first crisis, the defensive solution is an act of doubling, according to Quinodoz's dédoublement of the parental pair, accompanied by the defenses of splitting, foreclosure, and annihilation. Protected by these defenses, the child would be able to search for a solution to the neurotic part of the Oedipus complex. According to Freud's and Lacan's conception, these phases encompass the stages of the imaginary omnipotence, of the symbolic prohibition, and the symbolic reconciliation. The second crisis of Oedipus signifies therefore that the desire encounters the prohibition of the third (e.g., the father). I will show these stages in the 1967 film adaptation of Oedipus Rex and the life of its director, Pierre Paolo Pasolini. Against this background, the third crisis of Oedipus is considered: the impending ecological catastrophe.

Father and son: Freud revisits his Oedipus complex in Moses and Monotheism.

In this paper, I propose to understand Freud on his own terms and within his social, intellectual and psychological context. It is my hope that such an understanding will contribute in turn to our understanding of some of the sources of the creative process. Were it not for his fame, Freud's views on religion, history and art, would at best be but a footnote to these subjects. My contention is that Freud's writings on these subjects can contribute more to our understanding of Freud, the person, than they do to some of the subjects he is writing about. Toward this end I will focus on two of Freud's works, written more than 30 years apart, his early Moses of Michelangelo and his late-life work Moses and Monotheism, which reflect the considerable changes in Freud's thinking.

[Essay on the myth of oedipus]. / Ensayo sobre el mito de Edipo.

Jung conceptualized the collective unconscious as the locus of the myths, the absolutely genuine and primary patterns of thinking and feeling of humanity. The legend of Oedipus or myth of incest is a irrefutable proof of its eternal validity. The present essay is an attempt to take an alternative look to a history that belong to all of us. Situations that are developed in this drama, like the characters involved in it may charge significance as an archetypal and essentially symbolic interpretation.

[Oedipus, a traumatological - orthopaedic case? - Essay on an unfortunate figure from antiquity]. / Ödipus, ein traumatologisch - orthopädischer Fall?

This essay studies the physical shape, character and fate of Oedipus, applying relevant and current medical scientific criteria. The abuses he suffered during childhood play an important role in this context. The name Oedipus is usually translated as "swollen foot", but according to various etymological sources, the name can be interpreted in different ways. One of these interpretations alludes to fact that it was easy for the hero to solve the riddle of the sphinx because its key message addressed an orthopedic issue as it was dealing with the function of the feet. During Oedipus' life, he suffered many injuries and disorders, which can be classified using the current ICD code. There is, for example, his blindness after he had blinded himself. In addition, we can assume that Oedipus suffered from a post-traumatic stress disorder and a borderline personality disorder following the child abuse caused by his parents who intended to kill him. Thus, the discussion about his own responsibility for his actions is again being put into question. Oedipus`s life story is once again proof that Greek mythology can reflect the reality of life.

[A postcolonial couch, psychoanalysis and critical studies]. / Un divan postcolonial, psychanalyse et critical studies.

The expression "postcolonial couch" is first of all to be understood as an invitation to rethink psychoanalysis beyond the anthropological, epistemological and political categories that saw its birth (the Oedipus complex, sexual difference, etc.). But it must also be understood as a de-fense of psychoanalysis, and more specifically as a defense of the type of listening and care that its unique device, based on the hypothesis of the unconscious, makes possible.

Children's affectionate and assertive attitudes towards their parents: the Oedipus complex or parent-offspring conflict?

Being one of Freud's most famous contributions to psychoanalysis, the Oedipus complex is still a topic of heated interest. It has been disputed in many different disciplines ranging from anthropology to biology. This theoretical paper aimed to explain the phenomena that are represented by children's affectionate and assertive attitudes towards their parents, named as the Oedipus complex by some, in terms of parent-offspring conflict, sibling competition, and infanticide. All of these evolutionary biological concepts or their combination could conceive specific relational settings similar to those emerging in the Oedipus complex. Psychoanalysis surely acknowledges the effects of parent-offspring conflict or sibling dynamics on familial relations and character formation. Nevertheless, they have been generally overshadowed by other primary theoretical concepts. Considering the findings from evolutionary biology and developmental psychology, it was asserted that parent-offspring conflict and sibling dynamics must be included in the conceptualization of oedipal-like behaviors. In light of these hypotheses, related literature and suggestions for further studies were discussed.

The spit and image: a psychoanalytic dissection of a colloquial expression.

"He is the spit of his father" or "he is the spit and image of his father" is a colloquial expression that has graced informal English for many centuries. When a "spitting image" made an entrance in the manifest content of an analysand's dream, it became possible to add a psychoanalytic point of view to an etymological and anthropological record. After discussing both this clinical case and an "anthropological case history," the author examines the subtle but complex genesis of this colloquial expression from a speculative applied psychoanalytic perspective.

Obstacles to oedipal passion.

Many new theoretical and technical developments have extended our understandings of triangular conflicts in the psychoanalytic setting. Yet until recently psychoanalysis has lacked theoretical concepts for passion and, most particularly, for oedipal passion. Contemporary psychoanalytic understandings of the nature of oedipal passion help explain why it is both difficult to articulate and why it continues to be "forgotten". The author argues that individual resistances to oedipal passions reappear and are reinforced in collective theories that distance us from oedipal issues. She presents two clinical cases that illustrate enactments around, and resistances to, oedipal passions within both analyst and patient.

Trauma and the wise baby.

This paper expands upon Ferenczi's concept of the wise baby and explores the dynamics of ignorance and compensatory ideals of wisdom as reactions to trauma and as manifestations of "double conscience," shame dynamics and Oedipal shame. Focusing on feelings of ignorance, of knowing and not knowing and their relation to trauma, the author elaborates on the dynamics of fantasies of wisdom, adumbrating implications for psychoanalytic technique.

[Antigone: brother, sister and the tension in their relationship]. / Antigone: broer, zus en de spanning van hun relatie.

BACKGROUND: Although about 2500 years have passed since the first performances of Sophocles' tragedy Antigone, the play is nevertheless still able to move and inspire a wide audience. AIM: To demonstrate whether erotism and erotic elements underlie the conflict between the private domain and the public domain. METHOD: The relevant literature was studied and interpreted. RESULTS: Antigone can be read and interpreted in many different ways. The tragedy is often seen as a play about the position of women. In the most of the interpretations the central theme is seen as the conflict between loyalty to the state and loyalty to the family. In this essay it is argued that the conflict between the public domain and the private domain also occurs at an erotic level. Sexual feelings towards a brother make it difficult for a female sibling to make the move to a sexual partner outside the family. CONCLUSION: By focusing on the erotic conflict between brother and sister we can obtain a deeper understanding of the sexual relationship between siblings.

A Revision of Freud's Theory of the Biological Origin of the Oedipus Complex.

This revision concerns primarily the biological origin of the Oedipus complex, classically understood as an inherited primal phantasy. However, a reconceptualization of the origin of what Freud called the nuclear complex of the neuroses also has consequences for understanding its nature. A review of current knowledge relevant to the biological mechanisms of inheritance and the type of memory system that Freud had in mind, and a review of modern instinct theory, suggests that the Oedipus complex is not an innate predisposition but rather the almost inevitable outcome of a combination of simpler biological processes.

"Think like a mountain "-" to think of Oedipus ": a psychoanalytic contribution to environmental ethics.

The guilt and shame of participating in an indecent consumerist way of life that causes climate change and mass extinction of species inflicts a moral wound on us. This moral wound arouses an indignation of which the "Greta generation" is one of the spokespeople, and it involves developing an ethic of relations between our species and non-human species. We must learn to "think like a mountain", in the words of Aldo Leopold, that is to say in an ecosystemic way, in order to accept our true place in the biotic community of microorganisms, flora and fauna: that of "children of the biosphere", a biosphere on which we are as dependent as an infant is its parents. The author argues that developing such an ethic requires a work of culture to think about new environmental paradigms, especially the fact that humanity endlessly artificializes nature, even its own nature, to the detriment of the wild part of them. Can the Œdipal situation, its taboos and its respect for fecundity be extended to our biotic family?