‘Family Romance’ and the Oedipalization of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Although Freud's ‘Family Romances’ from 1909 is hardly ever discussed at length in secondary literature, this article highlights this short essay as an important and informative text about Freud's changing perspectives on sexuality in the period in which the text was written. Given the fact that Freud, in his 1905 Three Essays, develops a radical theory of infantile sexuality as polymorphously perverse and as autoerotic pleasure, we argue that ‘Family Romances’, together with the closely related essay on infantile sexual theories (1908), paves the way for new theories of sexuality defined in terms of object relations informed by knowledge of sexual difference. ‘Family Romances’, in other words, preludes the introduction of the Oedipus complex, but also – interestingly – gives room for a Jungian view of sexuality and sexual phantasy. ‘Family Romances’ is thus a good illustration of the complex way in which Freud's theories of sexuality developed through time.

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Her Mother Her Self: The Ethics of the Antigone Family Romance

Hypatia ◽

10.1111/j.1527-2001.1999.tb01054.x ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 96-125 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Lisa Walsh

Keyword(s):

Sexual Difference ◽

Feminist Ethics ◽

Lacanian Psychoanalysis ◽

Family Romance ◽

New Models

This essay discusses the implications of Irigaray's readings of the Antigone in the construction of a feminist ethics. By focusing on the gaps and intersections between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegelian phenomenology as formulative of Irigaray's eventual call for an ethics of sexual difference, 1 emphasize the inevitability of rethinking the functions of historicity, femininity, and maternity in the formation of new models of intersubjectivity.

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SONS AND LOVERS: TENNYSON'S FRATERNAL PATERNITY

Victorian Literature and Culture ◽

10.1017/s106015030505093x ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 451-466

Author(s):

Monica M. Young-Zook

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Oedipus Complex ◽

Freudian Psychoanalysis ◽

Father Figures ◽

Oedipal Complex ◽

Paternal Parent ◽

The Relationship ◽

Mourning And Melancholia ◽

British Culture ◽

Insight Into

TERRY EAGLETONhas suggested that “the mid-nineteenth century bourgeois state had problems in resolving its Oedipus complex” (76). Eagleton's semi-serious remark certainly holds true for nineteenth-century British culture, which, while supposedly patriarchal in its political structures, features a great number of significant literary narratives in which the paternal parent is either missing, dead, or never mentioned. The poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, are no exception. Gerhard Joseph, Christopher Ricks, and Linda Shires, among others, turn to Freudian psychoanalysis, the Oedipal complex, and Freud's seminal essay “Mourning and Melancholia” for insight into why so many father figures are absent from Tennyson's work. Yet neither the Oedipus complex nor “melancholia” accounts for how these father figures, while literally absent, are nevertheless present and influential. Another model is needed to describe the relationship between Tennyson, the missing paternal figures of his narratives, and the age that he has come to represent.

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Fathers and Sons: Freud's Discovery of the Oedipus Complex

Psychoanalysis and History ◽

10.3366/pah.2004.6.1.23 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 23-36

Author(s):

Kenneth A. Fuchsman

Keyword(s):

Oedipus Complex ◽

Family Context ◽

Family Romance ◽

Adult Sons ◽

Conceptual Clarity ◽

The Family ◽

Oedipal Complex ◽

Psychological Dynamics ◽

Fathers And Sons

Freud's path to the Oedipus complex reveals conceptual inconsistencies. These uncertainties concern fathers, brothers and sons, and the place of the oedipal triad within the family romance. Freud's uncovering of the Oedipus complex emerged, in large part, from his self-analyis of his childhood years in Freiberg. Freud's father was 20 years older than his third wife, and had two adult sons, all of whom lived in Freiberg. In 1897, when Freud announces the Oedipus complex, he stresses his love of his mother and jealousy of his father. Yet in 1924 Freud wrote that his adult brother, Philipp, had taken his father's place as the child's rival. The oedipal complex alters if there are four players rather than three. Freud's concept of an oedipal triangle does not adequately explain the psychological dynamics of his childhood. Fuller conceptual clarity would occur if the dynamics of the Oedipus complex were placed within the family context in which it unfolds.

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WHAT IS SEX? AN INTERVIEW WITH ALENKA ZUPANČIČ

Philosophical Literary Journal Logos ◽

10.22394/0869-5377-2018-4-1-25 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-26

Keyword(s):

Sexual Difference ◽

Oedipus Complex ◽

Heterosexual Relationships ◽

The Unconscious ◽

Pleasure Principle ◽

Language And Culture ◽

Gender Binary ◽

The Status ◽

And Gender ◽

Ontological Problem

In her latest book What is Sex? (MIT Press, 2017) Alenka Zupančič avoids such tiresome topics as heterosexual relationships or the gender binary (and gender altogether) and instead cogently explains sexual difference, the elusive “beyond” of the pleasure principle, infantile sexuality, the materiality of signifiers, the hole in being, the non-coincidence of truth and knowledge, primal repression, passion, the event, and the political importance of psychoanalysis. Sex for Zupančič is an ontological problem, co-extensive with a disturbance in reality, a signifying gap and structural impediment. Sex is attached to that which cannot be fully known or embodied and is therefore directly related to the unconscious. Subjectivity emerges from within the fault entailed in signification, as does surplus enjoyment. Important here, too, is the well-worn notion, but with a twist, that there is no reality prior or external to discourse. Zupančič reminds us that nature is not a pure and full presence before the arrival of the human but an object produced by and for science. The Real is an effect of language: the signifier invades the signified and alters it from within. Finally, and perhaps most mind-blowingly, the human in her formulation is not that which is merely in excess of the animal (dressing it up in language and culture, let’s say) but, rather, an unfinished and dysfunctional dimension: humanity as a veil that simultaneously points and gives form to animals’ ontological incompleteness. The interview covers these complex ideas as well as other pressing matters: the disappearance of the hysteric, the desert of the post-oedipal (the only one who managed to escape the Oedipus complex, Lacan noted, was Oedipus himself), and the status of love at the end of analysis.

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Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip on the social significance of schizoids

History of the Human Sciences ◽

10.1177/09526951211008078 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 095269512110080

Author(s):

Gal Gerson

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

Object Relations ◽

Political Activity ◽

Object Relations Theory ◽

Developmental Phase ◽

Social Significance ◽

Freudian Psychoanalysis ◽

The Social ◽

Multiple Levels ◽

Real Person

The mid-century object relations approach saw the category of schizoids as crucial to its own formation. Rooted in a developmental phase where the perception of the mother as a whole and real person had not yet been secured, the schizoid constitution impeded relationships and forced schizoids to communicate through a compliant persona while the kernel self remained isolated. Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip thought that schizoid features underlay many other pathologies that earlier, Freudian psychoanalysis had misidentified. To correct this, a move to the attachment-oriented theory was necessary, triggering the development of the object relations perspective as a distinct and independent approach. While playing this role in the development of object relations theory, the schizoid category also attracted a note of disapproval. Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip described schizoids as harmful to society through their everyday actions and through the ideas they propagated. This judgemental nuance highlights an aspect of the alliance between object relations theory and the contemporary welfare state ideology. Culminating in the Beveridge plan, that ideology framed citizenship as comprehensive engagement with society on multiple levels. Citizenship was not just a political activity but also a personally rewarding one, as it allowed expression to each person’s wishes in ways that benefited others. Inability to engage and be rewarded in this way marked obstinate classes and produced rigid and conservative ideologies that opposed the welfare state. Object relations theory described the schizoid condition along similar lines and castigated its consequences for similar reasons.

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INTRODUCTION: TEXTS, CONTEXTS, AND THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS: FORUM ON DAGMAR HERZOG,COLD WAR FREUD: PSYCHOANALYSIS IN AN AGE OF CATASTROPHE

Modern Intellectual History ◽

10.1017/s147924431800001x ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 209-213

Author(s):

CAMILLE ROBCIS

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

The Self ◽

Oedipus Complex ◽

The Unconscious ◽

Freudian Psychoanalysis ◽

History Of ◽

Historical Specificity ◽

Historical Developments ◽

The Cold War ◽

Talking Cure

The title of Dagmar Herzog's exciting new book,Cold War Freud: Psychoanalysis in an Age of Catastrophes, immediately raises a series of questions. If we understand the Cold War as a particular moment in history ranging from the 1940s to the 1980s, but also as a time of intense politicization, we might wonder about the juxtaposition of “Cold War” and “Freud”—the juxtaposition of history and politics with psychoanalysis. When Freud invented psychoanalysis at the end of the nineteenth century, his primary motivation was to treat individuals in their idiosyncrasy through the “talking cure” and the process of transference with the analyst. In that sense, psychoanalysis, at least as Freud exposed it in his initial case studies, had little to say about collective phenomena such as politics. Furthermore, in his more theoretical writings, one of Freud's explicit goals was to develop a theory of subjectivity that went beyond historical specificity. Of course, social and familial configurations affected the psyche in distinctive ways, but neurosis, psychosis, and perversion were subjectivestructuresrather than historical developments. Freud's main concepts—whether it be the unconscious, the drives, desire, the Oedipus complex—characterized human subjectivity in general. They pointed to the uniqueness of the self as opposed to the animal who was ultimately governed by nature, biology, and instincts. In other words, at first glance, Freudian psychoanalysis was not meant to be historical or political.

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A PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY OF PAUL MOREL’S SEXUAL DESIRE IN D.H LAWRENCE’S SONS AND LOVERS

Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, dan Studi Amerika ◽

10.20961/jbssa.v26i2.41851 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

Author(s):

EVI BAITUROHMAH

Keyword(s):

Women Characters ◽

Sexual Desire ◽

Intimate Relationships ◽

Oedipus Complex ◽

The Novel ◽

Main Character ◽

Pleasure Principle ◽

Freudian Psychoanalysis ◽

Restraining Force ◽

Descriptive Qualitative

This research examines the sexual desire of Paul Morel, a male main character in the D.H Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers. It is a descriptive qualitative library research with the main data are the narrative and dialogues taken from the respective novel.The study aims to describe how Paul Morel’s sexual desire in the novel Sons and Lovers is constructed. It uses Freudian psychoanalysis approach to reveal the pattern of intimate relationships between Paul Morel and three most- significant women in his life: Gertrude Morel, Miriam Leviers, and Clara Dawes. The result of the study shows that Paul sexual desire is constructed by his relationship with three women characters that posit different effects to him. Paul experiences Oedipus complex when he is a child. The mother acts as the restraining force that restricts Paul from fulfilling his sexual desire with other women. Paul and Miriam’s relationship is the manifestation of the id versus the superego. There’s an endless battle between Paul’s raw desire and Miriam’s religiosity. Meanwhile Paul and Clara’s relationship is the realization of the id. The intimacy between them is solely based on pleasure principle and satisfaction pursuit. Keywords: id, ego, psychoanalysis, sexual desire, superego

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The Use of Marian Chace’s Technique Combined With in the Depth Dance Therapy Derived from the Jungian Model

Musik- Tanz und Kunsttherapie ◽

10.1026/0933-6885.15.4.197 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 197-203

Author(s):

Penny Lewis†

Keyword(s):

Child Abuse ◽

Object Relations ◽

Dance Therapy ◽

Transformative Power ◽

Boundary Formation ◽

Inner Child ◽

Spiritual Consciousness ◽

Survival Mechanisms

Abstract. From my training with Marian Chace came much of the roots of my employment of dance therapy in my work. The use of empathic movement reflection assisted me in the development of the technique of somatic countertransference ( Lewis, 1984 , 1988 , 1992 ) and in the choreography of the symbiotic phase in object relations ( Lewis, 1983 , 1987a , 1988 , 1990 , 1992 ). Marian provided the foundation for assistance in separation and individuation through the use of techniques which stimulated skin (body) and external (kinespheric) boundary formation. Reciprocal embodied response and the use of thematic imaginal improvisations provided the foundation for the embodied personification of intrapsychic phenomena such as the internalized patterns, inner survival mechanisms, addictions, and the inner child. Chace’s model assisted in the development of structures for the remembering, re-experiencing, and healing of child abuse as well as the rechoreography of object relations. Finally, Marian Chace’s use of synchronistic group postural rhythmic body action provided access to the transformative power of ritual in higher stages of individuation and spiritual consciousness.

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