Reclaiming Lost Loves: Transcending Unrequited Desires. Discussion of Davies’ “Oedipal Complexity”

Abstract

In this discussion I address the multidimensionality embedded within the oedipal phase of development and contend that the elaboration and working through of unrequited oedipal longing within the transference–countertransference matrix is one of the most profound gifts of an analysis. The child’s confrontation with thwarted desire (generationally) for either parent is central to the development of the mind, the personality, and one’s erotic life. I also argue that the experience of oedipal exclusion becomes not solely a response to a generational boundary but to a gender boundary discouraging same-sex love. I speak for retaining a conceptualization of an oedipal complex without losing any of the complexity of individual experience. In describing our oedipal lineages for erotic life as resting upon an interwoven layering of maternal and paternal oedipal desires, my aim is to continue a project to rehabilitate the oedipal concept from heteronormative presumptions and from being (mis)understood in a reductive manner that alienates rather than engages.

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Notes on contributors

Dianne Elise

Dianne Elise, Ph.D., is Personal and Supervising Analyst and Faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, a Training Analyst member of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and a member of the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies, Princeton. She is an Associate Editor of Studies in Gender and Sexuality and has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Her private practice is in Oakland, CA.