Is the Oedipus complex an iatrogenic theory? Book essay on Jerome C. Wakefield, Freud’s Argument for the Oedipus Complex: A Philosophy of Science Analysis of the Case of Little Hans (Routledge, 2023) and Attachment, Sexuality, Power: Oedipal Theory as Regulator of Family Affection in Freud’s Case of Little Hans (Routledge, 2023)

Abstract

For almost a century, the fate and identity of psychoanalysis have been inseparable from the theory of the Oedipus complex. However, in these two books, Jerome Wakefield persuasively demonstrates that the Oedipus complex is not a cogent scientific theory but an iatrogenic theory. The Oedipal theory is described as enforcing a new form of regulation and restraint of the affection between mother and son, consistent with the direction in which marital relations were being restructured early in the twentieth century. The author’s main thesis is that “By theoretically sexualizing attachment behavior, the Oedipal theory has the impact of creating a sense of danger in mother–child physical affection due to the fear of arousing harmful sexual desire in the child.” By restraining physical cuddling, skin contact, and bed-sharing, Freud’s doctrine about the incestuous desires of a boy for his mother served to socially reengineer marriage by inserting anxiety into the parental comforting embrace, resulting in a partial ejection of the child from the intimate orbit of the parents and its modern locus, the parental bed. The harmful aspect of the Oedipal theory consisted of ignoring the child’s feelings of distress by misrepresenting the child’s attachment needs as erotic in nature.

Key words:

• Attachment theory
• Bowlby
• Foucault
• nuclear family
• Little Hans
• sexual theory of the neuroses
• seduction theory
• Oedipus complex

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carlo Bonomi

Carlo Bonomi, PhD, lives and works in Florence, Italy. He is a training and supervising analyst of the Società Italiana di Psicoanalisi Sándor Ferenczi and president of the International Sándor Ferenczi Network (ISFN). He is also co-editor-in-chief of the Italian journal The Wise Baby/Il poppante saggio, associate editor of the International Forum of Psychoanalysis, and corresponding editor of many other international psychoanalytic journals. His most recent book is A Brief Apocalyptic History of Psychoanalysis. Erasing Trauma (Routledge, 2023).