Oedipus Complex

A collection of papers focusing on the Kleinian conception of the Oedipus complex, how this is now understood, and what effect it has had on clinical practice.

Freud organised the theory of the child's journey to adulthood around the myths of Narcissus and Oedipus. In this intelligent study, the author re-examines these myths to see if a radical reinterpretation of them will give birth to new sets of images through which psychoanalysts can contemplate the contemporary patient.

A major and long overdue addition to the American/English psychoanalytic literature . . . written specifically for clinicians, by a clinician . . . All major conceptsamong them the mirror stage, the Name-of-the-Father, metaphor and metonymy, the phallus, the foreclosure of the subjectare developed and discussed in depth. Nicholas Kouretas, Harvard Medical School

In The Gender Conundrum Dana Birksted-Breen brings together for the first time key psychoanalytic papers on the subject of femininity and masculinity from the very different British, French, and American perspectives. The papers are gathered around the central issue of the interplay of body and psyche in psychoanalysis. The editor sees the positive use of this given tension and duality as the key to real understanding of the questions currently surrounding gender identity. As well as addressing the outspoken controversy over the understanding of femininity, she shows that there has been a more silent revolution in the understanding of masculinity. Offering an international perspective, this collection of seminal papers with introductions of exemplary clarity fills a considerable gap in the literature, providing a classic text for psychoanalysis and gender studies.

This "hopeful" book presents a new theory of psychosexual development, and concurrently, of psychosocial evolution. Morrow claims the sexual division of nature was a primordial organizing principle for all cultures. However, evolving qualities assigned by culture to women and men, have over the millennia incorporated, absorbed, or superceded biological differences. The resultant schism between femininity and masculinity represents the deepest cleavage in the human species and is crippling both men and women. Morrow's hope is that the release in each sex of repressed qualities of the other sex will allow both sexes to be what they have never been--whole. "Unleashing Our Unknown Selves begins with a critique of central paradigms in contemporary social science and ends with a provocative new theory of psychosexual development. Dr. Morrow brilliantly demonstrates why men are just as damaged as women by our present patriarchal sex/gender system." Joseph L. White Univeristy of California, Irnive

This book bridges psychoanalytic thought and sexual science. It brings sexuality back to the center of psychoanalysis and shows how important it is for students of human sexuality to understand motives that are often irrational and unconscious. The authors present a new perspective about male and female development, emphasizing the ways in which sexual orientation and homophobia appear early in life. The clinical section of the book focuses on the psychodynamics and treatment of homophobia and internalized homophobia.