The Nuclear Complexes

I've been hesitant to make a judgment on the Oedipus complex for the four positions of the personality matrix but I thought I'd share my recent impressions.

Firstly, at the Oedipal stage sexual difference is secured.

subject egoist- the Oedipus complex: with the loss of the father as role model qua just man the SE experiences passionate rivalry (homosexual feelings) with the father and the mother, as sexual object, is the expression of the feminine desires towards the father. Oedipus self-blinds at the end of the myth in identification with Tiresias that illustrates deferred obedience to the father or secondary identification with him.

object egoist- the Electra complex: with the loss of the ideal father who would take a sexual interest in the OE seeks revenge on her mother and her lover (the same father) for having castrated her. Orestes in the myth represents the masculine part lost in sexual difference.

subject altruist- the Polydectes complex: with the loss of the ideal father who would foster the SA's self-image and independence from a relationship a new father is sought to replace the 'bad father'. Seeking an ideal father is to seek the masculine in identification with him.

object altruist- the Bellerophon complex: with the loss of the ideal father who would be delighted by the OA the father is spurned and s/he seeks to become his own father. However, guilt doesn't allow this and a 'fear of success' keeps him from realizing his goal. The OA identifies with the 'castrated father' who holds his feminine side and can't surpass him.

Secondly, even though my claim is that the object egoist functions egoistically and is aligned with the active-masculine it is still linked with representations of the feminine. The same goes for the object altruist who functions in a passive-feminine way but is linked to representations of the masculine.

Thus in the Oedipus and Bellerophon myths we have the symmetry of both overcoming a monster who is part lion and blinding themselves at the end.

In the Electra and Polydectes myth the current male authority is bad and must be killed.

Polydectes is from the Perseus myth and I'm hesitant to use Perseus complex because it covers so much ground.

Altruist's Central Complex

In Feminine Guilt and the Oedipus Complex Chasseguet-Smirgel challenges Freuds view put forward in Female Sexuality that the girl’s Oedipus complex may not exist and, that if it does, it is usually an exact replica of her relationship to her mother.

I disagree with her and hold that the altruist (both subject and object), as well as the egoist (both subject and object), bring their phallic-proto (and phallic-narcissistic or phallic deutero relations, if experienced) with the mother to the Oedipal conflict with the father. Because of this I've only quoted the descriptive passages and left out a lot of her theory. 

  

“A girl’s guilt toward her father does not interfere merely with her sexual life but extends to her achievements in other fields if they take on an unconscious phallic significance. Inhibition related to this guilt seems to me chiefly responsible for women’s place in culture and society today… I found that in patients suffering from chronic headaches their guilt over surpassing their parents on an intellectual level (… as though reproducing an autocastration of the intellectual faculties) was usually linked to the father, in both male and female patients. For both sexes successful intellectual activity is the unconscious equivalent of possessing the penis. For women this means they have the father’s penis and have thus dispossessed the mother, the Oedipal drama. In addition they have also castrated the father. Moreover, [106] the adequate use of such a penis also involves from the unconscious point of view the fecal origin of this image, ultimately, that of retaining an anal penis, which in turn engenders guilt. 107

Once her aggression toward the paternal penis was accepted she was able to create fantasies about an Oedipal sexual relation with the father. 107

Guilt toward the mother, the Oedipal rival, is coupled with the guilt of having taken the father’s penis in order to make a child with it. This attack against the essence of the love object applied in transformation is experienced as anal guilt 109  [key = urethral stage ego- need for punishment emerges from here, Schreber, kestenberg, etc.)

We learn from clinical experience that from a narcissistic point of view the girl feels painfully incomplete 112

Basically, penis envy is the symbolic expression of another desire. Women do not wish to become men, but want to detach themselves from the mother and become complete, autonomous women. 118

Masculine Object:

The woman who identifies with the phallus desires only to be desired. She establishes herself as a phallus; this implies an impenetrability and therefore withdrawal from any relation with an external erotic object [123]… what Freud described as the narcissistic woman whose fascination, similar to that of a child, is linked with her ‘inaccessibility’ like ‘the charm of certain animals which seem not to concern themselves about us, such as cats and the large beasts of prey’ (On Narcissism). Further on Freud mentions the ‘enigmatic nature’ and the ‘cold and narcissistic’ attitude these women have toward men. Rather than seeing in this the essence of women’s object relations, I see it as an identification with an autonomous phallus. 124

If I have dwelt at such length on this description of woman’s identification with the autonomous phallus, it is because I wish to avoid confusing it with the position I am now going to discuss- that of the paternal penis woman. Far from being autonomous with regard to the object, she is closely dependent on it and is also its complement. She is the right hand, the assistant, the colleague, the secretary, the auxiliary, the inspiration for an employer, a lover, a husband, a father. She may also be a companion for old age, guide, or nurse. One sees the basic conflicts underlying such relationships in clinical practice. 124

Feminine subject:

During her analysis, she thinks of taking up some professional activity. At the beginning of his career  her husband had written some commercial songs to earn money. She had contributed the main ideas for these, so he now suggested that she write her own songs. But she says she is incapable of doing that- she could never be inspired unless the song could be considered his creation. 127

Acting for oneself, being autonomous, creating for oneself meant possessing the paternal penis and thus castrating the father 128

I would readily see this as the source of one of woman’s main conflicts, that of being relative to men, just as nearly all of woman’s cultural or social achievements are. Women are said to produce few original works; they are often the brilliant disciple of a man or of a masculine theory. They are rarely leaders of movements. This is surely the effect of a conflict specific to women… [they] are cured of their symptoms only in order to make publicity for their analyst; they feel they are a successful product, and experience their analysis as though the future and the reputation of the analyst depended on it (131)

The obstacles which the girl encounters in her love for her father and in the rivalry with her mother are frightening enough for the girl’s Oedipus complex to be just what the boy’s Oedipus complex was, “the crux of neuroses” 133

Oedipus vs. Bellerophon: the nuclear complex

This is a short summary on my work on the phallic stages leading to the Oedipus complex. To accept mental bisexuality and see active-masculine and passive-feminine trends as separate (i.e. a two sex theory and not a one sex theory with the other sex as a reaction formation) it deserves its own complex and all signs point to Bellerophon.

update: Bellerophon's parallels to Oedipus were the first thing to open my eyes to a new mythical designation but since there are four positions there should be four nuclear complexes. They are discussed on July 20th's post.

Based upon my research into the literature I’ve been able to identify that there is an active-masculine Oedipus complex and a passive-feminine Oedipus complex. Furthermore, the first object both the boy and the girl take is the mother (“positive” in the active and “negative” in the passive) and the second object is the father (“negative” in the active and “positive” in the passive). With the active Oedipus complex social anxiety regarding authorities replaces castration anxiety signals, and at the subsequent stage, which Freud calls the father-complex conscience capable of guilt is erected. Freud, following Alfred Adler, also draws attention to the ‘masculine protest’ that is part of the castration complex. As opposed to castration as ‘signal anxiety’ in the Oedipus complex, the castration complex involves a stage preceding the Oedipus complex. In it the active-masculine trend is incapable of allowing the individual to defer or be passive before another man (or would-be competitor). In essence the castration complex represents a regression from the Oedipus complex and helps to define it as centered around the ability of the active-masculine trend to accept or defer to a group leader. Norman O. Brown, Ernest Becker, Joyce McDougall and several writers have defined the perverse solution of the Oedipus complex as becoming one’s own father. In other words, the father is the first ‘group leader’ the child encounters (i.e. the leader of the family) and by not identifying with his ‘procreator’ he is forced to ‘make a name for himself’ through personal success.

Following the work of Chasseguet-Smirgel, and other writers on hysteria, the Oedipus complex for the passive-feminine trend has different aims. While the active-masculine trend is encountering social anxiety and heading towards conscience qua guilt, the feminine trend is heading towards self-assertion and independence in the Oedipus complex and leaving behind the feminine forms of conscience that exist earlier. The passive-feminine trend at its height in the castration complex is the complimentary binary of altruism to the masculine egoism, and the encounter in the Oedipus complex represents the father in the role of someone who fosters independence. For the feminine trend in an individual to regress back to the castration complex, as Freud and Chasseguet-Smigel see it, is to feel hopeless, depressed, and incapable of self-assertion (i.e. penis envy in Analysis Terminable and Interminable). Self-assertion is experienced as ‘castrating the mother’ while the masculine feels castrated whenever he isn’t ‘on top’ or besting a would-be competitor. Jealousy in regards to  the sexual object and jealousy of the recognition another receives is the key affect of the active-masculine phallic phase while vicarious pleasure through the love object is the social and sexual form of the passive-feminine. As Deutsch puts it, sex is something the man wants and the woman gives it to him for his happiness which becomes her own. Similarly, to become a function of his or her personality or enable him or her to maintain the feeling of being  powerful is the vicarious social pleasure.   

It follows from this the identification with the father following the Oedipus complex changes ‘castration anxiety’, or what Freud identifies as the fear of the loss of love in the woman, into social anxiety related to actualizing self-assertion. Thus, the ‘father complex’, in the passive-feminine is where genuine competitive striving enters and the poles of egoism and altruism undergo a reversal in which morality qua guilt and a sense of duty is set up in the masculine and the feminine pursues glamour and a sense of independence. This female Oedipus complex, has always been noted in what is termed ‘fear of success’ or fear of surpassing (maybe even being equal to) one’s own father. I propose it be called the Bellerophon complex since this myth shares many parallels with the Oedipus myth. Both deal with the overcoming of a monster possessing part of a lion (Sphinx and Chimera) and end with the hero being blinded. Bellerophon is blinded when he falls into a thorn-bush after he had attempted to fly up to Olympus to join the gods and Zeus caused him to fall for his hubris.