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PubMed1993

'Between the devil and the deep blue sea': the dyad and the triad in psychoanalytic thought.

This paper examines the limitations of the dyad as the prevailing conceptual model in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, and proposes the triad as a more relevant model. From an ontological perspective, triangulation is regarded as essential in the development of self-experience in psychic space. The Oedipus complex is visualised as a culminating event in a continuum of triadic experience rather than as the singular gravitational centerpiece of development. The role of the triad and triangulation in child development and clinical technique is discussed, with the phenomenon of 'tracking' selected to illustrate the limitations of an exclusively dyadic clinical focus.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

The development of time sense: from object constancy to adolescence.

A developmental line of time sense during the oedipal phase and latency is described. Subjective time sense is seen as constantly evolving, shaped by the emergence of cognitive capacities, significant emotional themes, and environmental influences. Temporal development during these phases is unique because the capacity to tell objective time is present for the first time. Significant emotional influences are the Oedipus complex, infantile neurosis, and superego formation. The concepts of Mother Time and Father Time are presented as useful descriptors of the child's intrapsychic representation of the chief environmental effectors of temporal organization. Clinical examples demonstrate that the development of time sense can be unaffected, impeded, or incorporated into psychopathology.

Child↗

PubMed1984

An essay on contemporary dynamic psychiatry.

Psychodynamic theory is less well understood than one would wish, especially because of the centrality of dynamic theories in understanding a host of psychiatric disorders. The key psychodynamic notion is that psychiatric symptoms can be explained as manifestations of an unconscious purpose or strategy. The theoretical term that best encompasses this notion is "intentionality", a theoretical option that has, in many psychiatric circumstances, the greatest predictive and explanatory powers. Other more or less loosely related dynamic theories are the theory of the Oedipus complex, developmental theory, the theory of transference and the extraclinical theory. New theoretical paradigms are currently competing for explanatory priority, a development which reflects a healthy maturity in psychodynamic science, and which may mean that a new and superordinate theoretical paradigm is about to emerge. At a time of theoretical ferment it is particularly important that the theoretical underpinning of dynamic psychiatry be clearly explicated and the author claims that theoretical role for intentionality.

Countertransference↗

PubMed1996

Studies on hysteria one hundred years on: a century of psychoanalysis.

In this paper the author shows how 'Studies on Hysteria' ushered in a new century of psychiatry. While hysteria as a clinical entity remains as difficult as ever to define, the entire theoretical edifice of psychoanalysis rests upon it, as it allowed the discovery of the laws of conscious and unconscious thought and fantasy and thereby made it possible to explain symptoms and dreams. The author points out that many of the basic concepts of psychoanalysis are already to be found in the Studies and that, although some important ideas were thereafter forgotten, these have now come to be regarded as essential again. The notions of splitting and dissociation featured prominently in that seminal work and have now been reintegrated into mainstream theory. Present-day psychoanalysis is considered to have returned to its roots as embodied in the Studies, much less emphasis now being laid on the later concepts of drives, phases and libido theory. Female development and the woman's Oedipus complex are, in the author's view, as problematic as in Freud's day, perhaps because of his countertransference problems and neglect of the role of the mother, as exemplified in the Dora analysis. As the author shows, only the French analysts have remained consistently faithful to the concept of hysteria, whereas in other countries it no longer exists as a diagnosis. Yet the concept is stated to be important both historically and for clinical practice today.

Dreams↗

PubMed1995

The concept of psychic homosexuality.

The author examines the concept of psychic homosexuality, as it is used by French authors, based on Freud's ideas in The Ego and the Id (1923). Being intimately bound up with the organisation and development of psychic bisexuality in both sexes, psychic homosexuality is a concept that proves to have many meanings conceptually and in clinical use. In particular there is the question as to whether it is of the same kind and performs the same function in men as in women. Arguing that the primary relationship with the mother is crucial to the psychic organisation of the feminine and the masculine and that their fate is different in the development of the girl and the boy through to the structured identifications that result from the Oedipus complex, the author describes the case histories of a man and a woman. He concludes that psychic homosexuality might most usefully be considered not as a singular entity but as a set of plural entities. The advantage of this way of conceptualising things is illustrated in the way certain fantasy configurations connected with infantile sexual theories were able to be more richly understood. The author ends by drawing out some implications of these distinctions for technique.

Adult↗

PubMed1983

A study on feminine sexuality.

This article tends to demonstrate the existence of an early feminine identification in the girl. For this purpose it presents some clinical material pertaining to a woman with clear evidence of an early Oedipus complex, involving a precocious link with the penis and the father. We found that the difficulties revealed by the patient with respect to her feminine identifications and her sexuality, are due to deficiencies in relation to the primary object, that were shifted to a difficult link with the penis. The material also shows that some positive elements in the tie of this particular patient with the father, were subsequently important in the acquisition of feminine aspects.

Adult↗

PubMed1978

Further reflections on the suicide of Kawabata Yasunari.

The suicide of Kawabata Yasunari has been studied in terms of loneliness, aestheticism, postwar Japan's mass democracy, and ill health and old age. This paper places focus on the Oedipus complex in relation to Kawabata's concepts of beauty, life, and death. This analysis was supported by the psychosocial data which were provided by Jiko no Tenmatsu (An Account of the Incident) by Usui Yoshimi. The book is based on the story told by a maid of Kawabata, who is believed to have played an important role in his suicide. Although it is a novel, Usui claims that he followed events as told by the reporter as closely as possible.

Esthetics↗

PubMed2002

Some thoughts on psychoanalysis and ethics.

The author attempts to establish a framework for understanding the contribution of psychoanalysis to ethics through examining the work of certain philosophers, especially Kant. After reviewing the development of Freudian thought and going beyond the 'psychoanalysis and/or psychiatry?' question, he asserts that the space of the psychoanalytical cure revolves around an ethical problem. Thus, the limits of analysis should be determined by the subject's capacity for developing a structure of belief in the unconscious, with the concomitant capacity to go beyond equivocation in respect of an ethical conflict that underlies all cases where psychical suffering is manifested. Indeed, only human beings are called upon to deal with an ethical paradox-equally a logical one-which could be stated thus: there is Good in Evil and Evil in Good. This ethical paradox is the consequence of human subjection to the constituent laws of the Oedipus complex, which distances the human being, in his/her dealings with Evil and with Good, from any naturalist stance. In respect of the cure, then, we must take into account that Evil does not proceed from any particular drive-based characteristic, but is rather the expression of specific subjection to an unconscious Other, towards which it directs its affects. Finally, the author proposes a principle that emerges from the preceding discussion: let us not impute to or place in the Other our own subjective splitting or pain at existing.

Freudian Theory↗

PubMed1986

The superego: a revised developmental model.

The superego is not, as psychoanalytic theory asserts, primarily heir to the oedipus complex. Freud proposed two theories of identification and superego formation, only one of which is widely known and accepted. The first, which he abandoned, argues for the genesis of conscience as compensation for lost narcissism. The second explains superego formation as a response to object loss and fear of castration. The latter view faces a number of anomalies, including the occurrence of preoedipal and postoedipal identifications unrelated to the castration complex, and the difficulty in providing a cause for female superego development. An alternative theory is proposed that returns to Freud's first theory of identification, arguing that gender-specific explanations are inappropriate for a phenomenon such as conscience, which occurs in both sexes. Prototypical male and female cases are presented alongside a general model of the development of ego processes and object relations. Case material is briefly examined, and the argument is made for conceptualizing psychosexual development as a developmental line rather than as the core of character formation.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Self-envy and intrapsychic interpretation.

Self-envy is described as the consequence of an early split between different part objects which form the structure of the oedipus complex. This takes place between an excluded destructive child part and another part usually modeled on a harmonic parental couple or on a creative and successful adult. The former will attack, paralyze, or destroy the latter, out of envy within the self. There are three main advantages in using an intrapsychic interpretation: (a) avoiding possible transference collusion in paranoid or perverse borderline structures; (b) eliminating possible persecutory anxiety from superego part objects projected into the analyst; and (c) putting the conflict in the right place, inasmuch as transference is a projection of internal conflicts. Clinical material is presented.

Adult↗

PubMed1985

Aspects of the analysis of an adult son of deaf-mute parents.

This case demonstrates unique features connected with the parental deafness: the patient's anger toward women, his splitting of objects into all-good and all-bad, ease of regression, yearning for the symbiotic mother particularly as it was related to space as a transitional phenomenon into which he brooked no intrusion, his unique interests and creativity, his method of teaching, the shaping of the Oedipus complex by preoedipal trauma, and his feeling of entitlement with need to be treated as an exception. I have attempted to demonstrate the relation of the preverbal and preoedipal traumata, stemming from the deaf-mutism of the parents of a hearing child, to the patient's pathology, the shaping of his oedipal constellation, and character traits. I have described the compensatory ego functions that resulted in the development of creative, professional ability. Also, I have tried to demonstrate the complicated multiple overdetermination of his symptoms and aspects of his character formation.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

The early oedipal situation: developmental, theoretical, and clinical implications.

The Oedipus complex is typically thought to begin in the phallic phase, when the child's relationship to the parents as a couple achieves central prominence. In contrast, the author views the appearance of oedipal conflicts in the phallic phase as the end point of a line of development of triangular relatedness that began in infancy. An aspect of the Kleinian view of the oedipal situation--that awareness of the parents as a couple begins in the preoedipal period--deserves serious consideration. A patient is presented for whom the working through of early oedipal issues in the transference-counter-transference permitted recovery from withdrawal into a fantasy world.

Child↗

PubMed1990

On the girl's psychosexual development: reconsiderations suggested from direct observation.

Following on two decades of longitudinal direct observation of young children, revisions of two component parts of psychosexual theory seem warranted. First, direct observation does not support the concept of a "phallic" phase as being representative of the girl's first genital phase. Observational findings challenge "phallic" concept-dependent hypotheses Freud proposed in 1925, including how the girl enters her Oedipus complex as well as the nature of her wish to have a baby. In the children observed by the author, phallic aggression was not manifest as much in girls as in boys, between the ages of two and four. Second, it is proposed we put aside the "phallic" phase concept in our considerations of the girl's dynamics and that we heighten our awareness of her early experiences of ambivalence--which lie at the heart of the oedipal conflict--and which leads to a formulation of superego development in the girl more compatible with clinical findings.

Child↗

PubMed2006

Sense of reality, reality testing and reality processing in borderline patients.

Although borderline patients are suitable for it, they often undergo repeated testing of fantasies against objective reality without success. A reason for these partial failures is that subjects have not been able to build a solid sense of reality and have found many difficulties for processing reality demands and possibilities. The author puts forward some thoughts on this question, such as the importance of working through the depressive position and the Oedipus complex in the process of building up a solid sense of reality. A sense of reality also favours continuous reality processing. When reality processing becomes as continuous as life itself, the repetition of individual reality tests becomes less frequent and necessary, and more satisfying. The author also presents some recommendations for the psychoanalytic treatment of such patients, stressing the importance and the difficulties of the introduction of the borderline patient into the triangular situation because primitive defences--such as disavowal and denial--are mobilized.

Adult↗

PubMed1981

Sibling incest aversion as an index of oedipal conflict.

This study examines sibling incest aversion as an index of the Oedipus complex. The scale's construction and its relation to presence of opposite sex siblings, guilt, and neuroticism is described. Males displayed less aversion and more variability in incest aversion than did females. There was a positive relation between aversion and having an opposite sex sibling for males, but not for females. For both sexes there was a positive relation between sex guilt and aversion. Compared to high or low incest aversion females, middle females displayed a mild obsessive-compulsive pattern, higher hostility guilt, more neurotic complaints, less extraversion and more sensitization. The high reliability and significant relations with relevant variables demonstrate the usefulness of this scale.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1984

Effects of subliminal activation of Oedipal fantasies on competitive performance. A replication and extension.

A subliminal psychodynamic activation experiment was conducted in which the effects of five subliminal stimuli were sought on the dart-throwing performance of male subjects. The stimuli consisted of the following messages, each accompanied by a congruent picture: BEATING DAD IS OK, BEATING DAD IS WRONG, BEATING HIM IS OK, BEATING HIM IS WRONG, and PEOPLE ARE WALKING. The first two stimuli were intended to activate competitive motives within the context of the Oedipus complex; the next two, competitive motives outside that context; and the last was intended as a control stimulus. BEATING DAD IS OK led to greater dart-throwing accuracy than each of the other four conditions, which in turn did not differ from each other. This finding replicated a result reported by Silverman, L. H., Ross, D., Adler, J., and Lustig, D. (J. Abnorm. Psychol., 87: 341-357, 1978) and is in keeping with the formulation that the activation of oedipal motives can affect competitive performance. Neither a subject variable (fear of success) nor the differential effects of two experimenters was found to interact with stimulus conditions in affecting dart scores.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

The transitional oedipal relationship in female development.

The concept of the oedipal transitional relationship is proposed as a way of understanding the nature of the psychological-interpersonal process mediating the little girl's entry into the Oedipus complex. This transitional relationship serves to allow the little girl to discover non-traumatically the father as external object in the context of the safety of the dyadic relationship to the mother. In this early phase of oedipal development, the little girl falls in love with the mother-as-father and the father-as-mother, i.e. the mother in her unconscious identification with her own father. In this way, paradoxically, the first triangulated object relationship is experienced in a two-person relationship; the first heterosexual relationship develops in a relationship involving two females; the father as libidinal object is discovered in the mother.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

The rape of Medusa in the temple of Athena: aspects of triangulation in the girl.

The relationship between the Greek goddess Athena and her father Zeus, together with the competitive hostility she displays towards other females, is presented as illustrating some previously neglected aspects of triangular developmental conflicts in the little girl. Literature on "the Oedipus complex in the female" is reviewed and discussed. The mythological early histories of both Athena and the female monster Medusa are examined for the light they can shed on female developmental vicissitudes and resultant conflicts in both women and men. Unconscious split representations of women as assertive, phallic and dangerous, or alternatively passive, castrated and receptive result in defensive repudiation of the idea that a woman can be both actively assertive and also feminine and sexual. Athena's enraged action of transforming the beautiful young maiden Medusa into a monster as punishment for the "crime" of having been raped in her temple is discussed as illustrating an outcome of the lack of resolution of the little girl's early triangular conflicts.

Competitive Behavior↗