Murdered father; dead father: Revisiting the Oedipus complex1

Abstract

This paper recovers the notion of the sacrifice of sexuality as the central, tragic, element of the oedipal structure. This notion has been largely abandoned in the psychoanalytic literature that has tended to reduce the oedipal structure to processes of exclusion. The paper traces the development of the theoretical and clinical transformations of Freud 's ideas on the role of the father and suggests that they allow us to more fully comprehend the Oedipus complex proposed by Freud. A paradox is explored: the killing of the father is, in Freud 's view, the requirement for the creation of the social order which, from then on, prohibits all killings. The father, however, has to be killed metaphorically only, as the actual exclusion of the father lies at the origin of so many psychopathologies from violence to the psychoses and perversions. The paper analyses the fundamental asymmetry that is present in the Oedipal structure and suggests that the three elements of the oedipal triangle constitute the law (of the dead father, that institutes the sacrifice of sexuality), desire (for the lost object) and identification (with both father and mother). Two clinical examples are discussed. In the first, one can identify a perverse structure in which the father has been murdered; in the second, there is a progressive construction of the dead (symbolic) father in the analytic process.

Recovering the Father in Mind and Flesh: History, Triadic Functioning, and Developmental Implications

“…Perelberg () completed a comprehensive and eloquent examination of the evolution of Freud's elaboration of the father's role prior to formulating this foundational construct. She noted that Freud initially considered the part played by the actual father in seducing his daughter (Breuer and Freud ), and then, in analyzing his own dreams, he discovered the significance of unconscious fantasies and ambivalence toward the father (Freud ).…”

Anxiety: The importunate companion. Psychoanalytic theory of castration and separation anxieties and implications for clinical technique

“…At times it was only through an almost instinctual adherence to the psychoanalytic setting and its firm boundaries that I, and indeed Thomas, managed to survive the excess of his violent acting out. Perelberg (2009) reminds us how the maintenance of the analytic frame is rooted in psychoanalytic theory. She describes how the analytic setting, in its rules of sacrifice, abstinence and refusal of seduction, reinstates the law of the dead father: the father who has died, rather than the father who has been murdered.…”

“…The father, however has to be killed metaphorically only, as the actual exclusion of the father lies at the origin of so many psychopathologies. (Perelberg, 2009, p. 714)…”

‘A father is being beaten’: Constructions in the analysis of some male patients

“…These ideas are crucially linked to the centrality of the Oedipus complex in Freud’s formulations, which constitutes the first, basic symbolic structure, and includes a network of concepts such as the murder of the father, the setting up of the ego ideal, superego, de‐sexualization and sublimation (Green, 1992, 2004, 2008, p. 28; Kohon, 1999, 2005b; Perelberg, 2009, p. 719). For Freud, the father is crucial, essentially as the third element that institutes the prohibition of incest in the relationship with the mother.…”

“…2 2 I am aware that in this paper I am focusing on the role of the father, and will appear to leave the mother aside. Several ideas guide this choice: (a) a relative neglect of the role of the father in the British psychoanalytic literature, and my wish to recover the notion of paternal function ; (2) a footnote in Freud’s Ego and the Id where he emphasizes that primary identification exists in relation to both parents (see Perelberg, 2009); (3) the crucial relevance of the appearance of the father in the transference in the analyses that I will be discussing. All these analyses were characterized by the predominance of a transference to a phallic woman in their initial stages. …”