Description
Book SynopsisMurdered 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 aprÃs coup and the dynamic aprÃs 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
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This is a superb and profound book. Rosine Perelberg’s masterful understanding of the most important French and British psychoanalytic writers is only surpassed by her delicate and acute attunement to her patients, who are described in a language that is at the same time elegant, precise and poetic. Perelberg’s thinking is audacious, creative and innovative. Her book not only gives a powerful insight into an important and original psychoanalytic thinker, but also provides a framework for modern clinical practice. - Jean Claude Rolland is a Training Analyst of the Association Psychanalytique de France, author, and co-editor of the 30 volumes of Libres Cahiers Pour la Psychanalyse
This book shows Rosine Perelberg’s characteristic blend of acute clinical perceptiveness with profound scholarship. Her background in anthropology offers fresh perspectives on the Oedipus complex in non-Western cultures, on Biblical narrative, and on the Holocaust. Culturally and intellectually, this book has a breadth of vision that must enrich any reader. The wealth of ideas is underpinned by vivid clinical examples and, most especially, by a meticulous reading of Freud. However well you know Freud’s writing, you will come away from Rosine Perelberg’s book knowing it better. - Michael Parsons, British Psychoanalytical Society, French Psychoanalytic Association
Central to Professor Perelberg’s illuminating revisitation of the Oedipus complex is the distinction between the Oedipal story that represents the murdered father as a universal infantile phantasy, and the Oedipus complex, which represents the dead father as the symbolic third that institutes the prohibition of incest. Perelberg’s scholarly approach to Freud’s texts, combined with her sensitive analysis of clinical material, literary examples, and anthropological references, deepen the meaning of the Oedipus complex. Her compelling reflections on the Holocaust offer insights particularly relevant to our understanding of history. - Donald Campbell, Training and Supervising Analyst, Past-President of the British Psychoanalytical Society
Table of ContentsCONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Gregorio Kohon
Introduction
PART I
Paternal function: Theoretical and clinical considerations
1. Murdered father, dead father: Revisiting the Oedipus complex
2. "A Father Is Being Beaten"
PART II
Thirdness and temporality
3. Paternal function and thirdness in psychoanalysis and legend: Has the future been foretold?
4. The uncanny: Thirdness and temporality
PART III
Is the Oedipus complex universal?
5. The enigma of Oedipus in psychoanalysis and social anthropology
6. The structuring function of the Oedipus complex
PART IV
The murder of the dead father
7. The murder of the dead father as habitus
Postscript
Glossary
References
Index
