It Ain't Over Until the Fat Lady Sings: Commentary on Wherefore the Oedipus Complex in Adolescence? by Marsha H. Levy-Warren

Abstract

In full support of Marsha H. Levy-Warren's thesis that adolescence is another key focal point of oedipal negotiations, this discussion stretches the argument further, inviting us to dispense with the notion of normative developmental progression in oedipal resolution and replace it with a nonlinear model that makes room for variation, marginality, and multiplicity regarding gender and sexual identity, with none privileged over the other in defining healthy outcomes. Finally, a more radical proposal is presented: substituting “stage” with “position” in clinically understanding both Oedipus and adolescence—a negotiation between ego, anxieties, and defenses; a structural rather than temporal model in which tumultuous triadic and intrapsychic negotiations take precedence in a particular developmental era and then remain in place dialectically throughout life. To elucidate their explanatory potential, the concepts of oedipal and adolescent positions are applied to gender-variant development and menopause. In conclusion, the answer to “Wherefore Oedipus?” is “Oedipal forever.”

Notes

¹For those of us who later became feminists and retrospectively cringed at our adolescent musical gender indoctrinations, we all had a good chuckle when we learned that Lesley Gore later come out as a lesbian.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Diane Ehrensaft

Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., is a developmental and clinical psychologist and head of the research committee on reproductive technology at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. She is author of Parenting Together (The Free Press, 1987), Spoiling Childhood (Guilford Press, 1997), and Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates (Guilford Press, 2006).