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In Foucault Versus Freud, Jerome C. Wakefield offers a novel analysis of one of the great intellectual clashes of our times, the attack on Sigmund Freud's influential sexual theories by the eminent French philosopher and historian of ideas Michel Foucault.Starting from Foucault's question,'What makes the psychoanalytic theory of incest acceptable to the bourgeois family?', and drawing on Foucault's relatively unexplored published lectures as well as his celebrated History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Wakefield evaluates Foucault's argument that there is a continuity between the two-century medical anti-masturbation crusade and Freud's theory, providing the reader with an accessible introduction to Foucault's conceptual innovations including power/knowledge, the deployment of sexuality, and the use of surveillance and confession as tactics in medicalizing sexuality and reshaping family life.Rather than allowing the argument to stay at the evidentially uncertain level one often finds in Foucault's writings, Wakefield undertakes close readings of both Freud's'seduction-theory'texts and later Oedipal-period texts to test whether Foucault's provocative arguments find support or disconfirmation. Despite identifying weaknesses in Foucault's position, Wakefield argues that a careful look at Freud's sexual theories through Foucault's theoretical lens changes forever the way one sees Freud's theory—and has the potential to help psychoanalysis move forward in a constructive way.This book is written to be understandable for those who are not steeped in philosophy or familiar with Foucault's philosophy, offering a lucid introduction to Foucault's ideas and his clash with Freud that will be of interest to clinicians, students, and scholars alike.

This book updates the Oedipus complex for a contemporary audience in the light of social and cultural changes and explores its implications for psychoanalytic treatment and our understanding of queer families.Growing evidence during the past few decades indicates that children who grow up in same-sex families adapt well. These findings, which do not conform to the predictions of Oedipal theory, expose the theory's biases, and call for reexamination of its premises. This book based on ground-breaking research and pursues a methodical investigation of the characteristics of the same-sex families that defy the expectations of Oedipal theory. Furnished with vivid illustrations, it invites the reader to engage actively in the interpretive effort and presents a diverse and complex story about kinship, opening a window onto a rich world of infantile phantasies and parents'psychological conflicts, at the fascinating intersection of the personal and the social.Oedipal Experiences in Same-Sex Families will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, educators and policymakers, same-sex parents, and parents who were assisted by gamete donation.

In Freud's Adolescence, Florian Houssier looks at the early years of the Father of Psychoanalysis and considers how his personal experiences shaped his later work. Including excerpts from many letters written by Freud himself, this volume allows a rare glimpse into the inner thoughts and emotions of one of his generation's greatest minds.Engaging with this lesser-known period of Freud's life, the vivacity of his incestuous and parricidal fantasies comes to the surface, infiltrating his relational life as well as his dreams. Houssier proposes a new hypothesis about the conflicts of Freud's adolescence, and their impact on his tendencies in later conflicts. This is the first book that sustains a systematic analysis of this material and adds a new dimension to the biography of Freud by exploring links between his life and creativity from a current theorisation of the adolescent process. This book will be an essential read for all psychoanalysts, psychologists, lecturers, followers of Freud's work and those looking into psychoanalysis as a whole.

Psychoanalysis and the Politics of Family aims to raise a sophisticated and highly accessible debate around the family, self-making and the political and cultural implications of liberation. The text proposes a new way to read the Lacanian theory of Oedipus and through this reading resituate a series of important political and theoretical debates that have concerned intellectual life over the last forty years. It is written with an accessible style so that both specialists in Lacanian and Marxist theory and a broader cross-section of readers interested in understanding the implications of debates across populist and Marxist perspectives that have occupied the global left since the 2008 economic crash. The text aims to resituate the way theories of emancipation and liberation are theorized from a distinctive psychoanalytic and Lacanian point of view. In resituating the infamous “Oedipus complex” in a new light, the text re-opens a series of debates with important theoreticalinterlocutors, including the influential American historian and psychoanalytic thinker Christopher Lasch, whose thought has witnessed a significant renaissance of interest today, to the staunch critic of Freud and Lacan, René Girard, to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and their widely read Anti-Oedipus series that disputes the Freudian and Lacanian notions of Oedipus.

“Para mí, este libro tiene, en efecto, una segunda importancia subjetiva que sólo alcancé a comprender cuando lo hube concluido, al comprobar que era parte de mi propio análisis, que representaba mi reacción frente a la muerte de mi padre, es decir, frente al más significativo suceso, a la más tajante pérdida en la vida de un hombre”. Sigmund Freud Del desarraigo inicial a la invención del psicoanálisis. De la muerte del padre a La interpretación de los sueños. De una incipiente teoría de la seducción al complejo de Edipo. En el medio, un viaje a Italia donde Freud se topa con los frescos de Signorelli en la Catedral de Orvieto y después… después una carta a Fliess donde le dice que ya no cree en su neurótica y, posteriormente, el comienzo del Selbstanalyse. Freud llegó a Orvieto el 8 de septiembre de 1897 y visitó la Catedral a la mañana siguiente. Nada anticipaba que los frescos pudieran haberle impactado tanto, salvo por su silencio, tal vez. Tuvo que pasar un año y otro viaje para que, luego de un olvido, apareciera el nombre de Signorelli. ¿Qué vio Freud en esos frescos como para dejar de creer en su neurótica e inventar el psicoanálisis, articulado al complejo de Edipo? ¿Qué vio en Orvieto para que a su regreso iniciara el Selbstanalyse, que más adelante interrumpiría porque no hay análisis sin otro? Este es un libro de viajes, sobre todo el de una travesía: la que llevó a Freud a inventar el psicoanálisis.

In this close reading of Freudian theory, Jerome C. Wakefield reconstructs Freud's argument for the Oedipal theory of the psychoneuroses, placing the case of Little Hans into a philosophy-of-science context and critically rethinking the epistemological foundations of psychoanalysis.Wakefield logically evaluates four central Freudian arguments: the'undirected anxiety'argument which contends that Hans suffered from anxiety before he developed his horse phobia; the'day the horse fell down'argument where, engaging in some scholarly detective work, Wakefield resolves a century-old dispute between behaviorists and psychoanalysts about when Hans witnessed a frightening horse accident; the'N=1 sexual repression'argument that the trajectory of Hans's sexual desires matches the Oedipal theory's predictions; and lastly, the'detailed symptom characteristics'argument that the Oedipal theory is needed to understand otherwise inexplicable details of Hans's symptoms. Wakefield demonstrates that, although Freud's arguments are brilliantly conceived, he misread the facts of the Hans case and failed to support the Oedipal theory as judged by his own stated evidential standards. However, this failure creates an opportunity for renewed consideration of psychoanalysis's distinctive contribution: the understanding of an individual's unique meaning system and confrontation with meanings outside of focal awareness in order to reshape an individual's fate.This book will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists alike, and will prove essential for scholars working in the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy of science, and the history of psychiatry.

In Attachment, Sexuality, Power, Jerome C. Wakefield challenges established views of Freudian psychoanalysis by applying Foucault's concept of ‘power/knowledge'to Freud's case of Little Hans, illuminating the role that Oedipal theory has played in reorganizing intimate family relationships.Combining close examination of the Hans case with accounts of the history of marriage and psychology of co-sleeping, this book argues that the Oedipal theory achieved prominence because its implications for family dynamics supported changing social values. Wakefield identifies a previously overlooked reason for Hans's anxiety—his father attempted to protect Hans from his supposed Oedipal desires by separating Hans from his mother. Thus, Wakefield argues, the father's exercise of power based on his belief in Oedipal theory, not an actual Oedipus complex, caused Hans's vulnerability to anxiety—revealing the theory's potential to cause harm by distancing children from their parents, even as such distancing made the theory socially appealing.This book's novel and carefully documented articulation of the mechanisms of power by which Oedipal theory exerts its influence on family life will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists alike, and essential for scholars in the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy of science and the history of psychiatry.

Autonomy, Relatedness and Oedipus is an innovative and inspiring work from Thijs de Wolf that takes a critical look at the field of psychoanalysis. He takes the view that psychoanalysis is about both the inner and outer world and presents a compelling case. Using the works of Freud and other leading writers, such as Ferenczi, Faimberg, Laplanche, Lacan, Fonagy, Target, and Blatt, de Wolf investigates the central concepts of psychoanalysis and its place in the world. The wide-ranging chapters include a detailed examination of Freud's book on Leonardo da Vinci; discussions of the personality, the unconscious, and sexuality; the development of the psychoanalytic frame, not just in terms of the individual but also the object relational, group, and systemic aspects; the issue of descriptive and structural diagnostics and how to find a balance between the two; the analysis of dreams; the concept of change; the difficulties surrounding termination of treatment; and end with a novel explication of the oedipal constellation that brings many new insights to a key foundation stone of psychoanalytic theory. This book is written for trainees and professionals looking to find their own'path'in psychoanalysis; those open to findings from other scientific areas, such as developmental psychopathology, the neurosciences, attachment theories, and human infant research. De Wolf's theoretical pluralism and breadth of scholarship bestows a stimulating range of ideas to take psychoanalysis back to its place as a leader in the field.

Este livro examina a construção progressiva da noção de função paterna e sua relevância para a psicanálise. A distinção entre o pai assassinado (narcísico) e o pai morto é considerada um paradigma para a compreensão de diferentes psicopatologias, bem como de obras literárias, da antropologia e de acontecimentos históricos. São introduzidos novos conceitos, como “um pai é espancado”, e uma distinção entre o après-coup descritivo e o après-coup dinâmico, inaugurando uma compreensão psicanalítica da temporalidade. O livro inclui uma reflexão sobre como os conceitos de instinto de morte e de negativo podem auxiliar a compreensão de Auschwitz, um momento que a autora caracteriza como “o assassinato do pai morto”. A obra é uma importante referência intelectual e clínica e será leitura obrigatória para psicanalistas, psicoterapeutas, antropólogos e historiadores, bem como estudantes de todas essas disciplinas.

Psychoanalysis, the Body, and the Oedipal Plot is a new radical departure in psychoanalytic exposition. An attempt is made to convey, in a language accessible for people from different disciplines, some of the most difficult processes that conform our subjectivity and our concept of difference and alterity.Containing both significant theoretical material and applications of the theory to clinical psychoanalytic practice, this book offers the latest thinking on the importance of the body in psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalysis, the Body, and the Oedipal Plot will be of interest to psychoanalysts, philosophers, and cultural theorists.

Escrito entre o verão de 1930 e o outono de 1931, o manuscrito de Sigmund Freud descoberto em meio aos arquivos do embaixador norte-americano William C. Bullitt contém a versão integral daquilo que viria a ser o primeiro capítulo do livro que escreveram juntos, Thomas Woodrow Wilson: um estudo psicológico. Recuperado aqui das numerosas passagens suprimidas no livro e traduzido pela primeira vez para o português, o texto original de Freud oferece uma introdução acessível a algumas ideias fundamentais da psicanálise, em uma síntese que privilegia a apreensão do complexo de Édipo e de temas correlatos.

The Anti-Oedipus Complex critically explores the post ‘68 dramatic developments in Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis and cultural theory. Beginning with the decline of patriarchy and the master, exemplified by Freud's paean for the Father, the revolutionary path was blown wide open by anti-psychiatry, schizoanalysis and radical politics, the complex antimonies of which are traced here in detail with the help of philosophers, such as Nietzsche, Baudrillard, Levinas, Steiner, Žižek, Badiou, Derrida and Girard, as well as theologians, analysts, writers, musicians and film makers. In this book, Rob Weatherill, starting from the clinic, considers the end of hierarchies, the loss of the Other, new subjectivities, so-called ‘creative destruction', the power of negative thinking, revolutionary action, divine violence and new forms of extreme control. The book raises the following questions: Does the engagement of the Radical Orthodoxy movement offer some hope? Or should we re-situate psychoanalysis within a ‘genealogy of responsibility'(Patočka / Derrida) as it emerges out of the sacred demonic, via Plato and Christianity? The Anti-Oedipus Complex will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, counsellors, social workers and scholars in critical theory, philosophy, cultural theory, literary theory and theology.

This book examines the contentious relationship between psychoanalysis and anthropology as it has played out in disputes surrounding the Oedipus complex. Here, Éric Smadja explores the complicated historical and epistemological conditions leading up to the emergence of the conflict between the two disciplines. He considers the origins of each science, the'creation'of the Oedipus complex, and the place, role and influence of Freud's key and controversial work Totem and Taboo, both in the history of psychoanalysis and as it connects with anthropology internationally.Focusing on such key figures as Bronislaw Malinowski, Ernest Jones, Franz Boas, Georges Devereux, Emile Durkheim, Claude Levi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan, Smadja charts the course of the debate as it unfolded during the twentieth century and tracks its contemporary status of the debate, with a focus on figures in both France and the United States. Discussing the divergences and convergences between the two fields, he compares and contrasts their historical, epistemological and methodological features and reflects on the new'acculturative'disciplines emerging from their interaction. The book concludes with a look at what the conflictual history of these two human sciences can tell us about the history of ideas and their processes and modes of communication.Exploring a dispute which reaches back to the very beginnings of psychoanalysis and anthropology, The Oedipus Complex will appeal to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, psychotherapists and academics and students of psychoanalytic studies, anthropology and the history of ideas.

Aiming to reconceptualize some of Freud's earliest psychoanalytic thinking, Andrew Barnaby's Coming Too Late argues that what Freud understood as the fundamental psychoanalytic relationship—a son's ambivalent relationship to his father—is governed not by the sexual rivalry of the Oedipus complex but by the existential predicament of belatedness. Analyzing the rhetorical tensions of Freud's writing, Barnaby shows that filial ambivalence derives particularly from the son's vexed relation to a paternal origin he can never claim as his own. Barnaby also demonstrates how Freud at once grasped and failed to grasp the formative nature of the son's crisis of coming after, a duality marked especially in Freud's readings and misreadings of a series of precursor texts—the biblical stories of Moses, Shakespeare's Hamlet, E. T. A. Hoffmann's'The Sandman'—that often anticipate the very insights that the Oedipal model at once reveals and conceals. Reinterpreting Freudian psychoanalysis through the lens of Freud's own acts of interpretation, Coming Too Late further aims to consider just what is at stake in the foundational relationship between psychoanalysis and literature.

»Es gibt Bücher, die kommen als vermeintlich spröde wissenschaftliche Themendiskussion daher und entpuppen sich bei der Lektüre als spannendes Lehrbuch. Dieses Buch ist dafür ein Beispiel. Der österreichische Psychoanalytiker schuf ein Werk, das ein Gesamtbild der Vaterfigur in der Psychoanalyse, aber auch in der Gesellschaft zeichnet. […] Mit Verve fordert der Autor eine ›sozialpolitische Wende‹ weg von der Allverfügbarkeit des Menschen und hin zu mehr Individualität, die auch Männern eine selbstverständlichere Anwesenheit und damit Nähe zu Kindern einräumt. […] Er führt ein Plädoyer für familien- und sozialpolitische Maßnahmen, die das Zusammenleben der Kinder mit Vater-Männern auf allen Ebenen einleiten.« Andrea Schneider in Deutsches Ärzteblatt PP »Aigners Buch samt seiner Ausflüge und Exkursionen in die Sphären der Psychoanalyse ist nicht unbedingt leichte Bettlektüre. Doch wer einen Faible für psychodynamische Hintergründe hat und wer es auf Dauer nicht so sehr schätzt, mit vorschnellen, humoresken Zeitdiagnosen mehr abgespeist als aufgeklärt zu werden, der findet in seinem seitenstarken Werk viel Bedenkenswertes und viel auch an purem Wissen, dass sich von Kapitel zu Kapitel immer mehr verknüpft. Und gibt es etwas besseres, als wenn man plötzlich den Lesefluss unterbricht, weil sich eigene Gedanken aufdrängen?« Frank Keil in Switchboard

Murdered Father, Dead Father: Revisiting the Oedipus Complex examines the progressive construction of the notion of paternal function and its central relevance in psychoanalysis. The distinction between the murdered (narcissistic) father and the dead father is seen as providing a paradigm for the understanding of different types of psychopathologies, as well as works of literature, anthropology and historical events. New concepts are introduced, such as'a father is being beaten', and a distinction between the descriptive après coup and the dynamic après coup that provides a model for a psychoanalytic understanding of temporality. The book includes a reflection on how the concepts of the death instinct and the negative, in their connection with that which is at the limits of representability, are an aid to an understanding of Auschwitz, a moment of rupture in European culture that the author characterizes as'the murder of the dead father'. Perelberg's book is an important clinical and intellectual marker, and will be required reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as students in all these disciplines.

Fixing Gender uses psychoanalysis to explore the theoretical implications for the gendering of the human subject that arise from the situation of lesbians raising children from birth. In the face of the powerful evidence of the ways gender operates, and in the deep structural ways the logic of gender perpetuates, both made visible by psychoanalysis, this book asks: Is gender always fixed? Can the system which is produced by, and which produces, gender be altered? Can gender be fixed? The work begins by sketching the implications of gender as elucidated by feminist thinkers in general and feminist psychoanalytic thinkers in particular. Moving to Freud's theory of the subject, the work examines the logic of the Oedipus complex, and from there it looks at what feminist object relations theorists have done with and to the logic of the Oedipus complex. The book then moves to the literature on lesbian family functioning; and finally the work ends with a radical interrogation into the possibilities enabled by paying attention to form, and highlighting its constitutive possibilities.

In The Riddle of Freud Estelle Roith argues that certain important elements of Judaic culture were so integral a part of Freud's personality that they became visible in his work and especially in his attitudes to and theories of femininity. Freud's formulation of femininity, which the author contends is mistaken, is seen not as a simple error but as resulting from a complex bias in which personal and social factors are interrelated. The author proposes that the considerable ambivalence experienced by Freud about his sexual, cultural, and social identity, in which both overt and covert aspects of his Jewish culture survived, could not be surmounted by him in the case of women.Estelle Roith describes Freud's theory of femininity and its implications for psychoanalytic theories of human development and motivation in general. She examines Freud's relationships with his women disciples and also the social and political conditions that obtained for Jews of Freud's time. Finally, her book helps illuminate the reasons for Freud's emphasis on the paternal power within the Oedipus complex. It is essential reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, for students of women's issues, and all those interested in Freud's impact on contemporary Western thought.