Anti-Oedipus from philosophy of science and Foucauldian knowledge-power perspectives

Background

Freud identified his theory of the Oedipus complex as his greatest scientific contribution, made it the centerpiece of his clinical theory of the etiology and cure of the psychoneuroses, and adamantly defended it throughout his life. The theory dominated psychoanalysis for almost a century and determined how the problems of countless patients were interpreted. However, recent scholarship suggests that the arguments Freud used to support the theory are unsound and that, far from being harmless pseudoscience, the Oedipal theory constitutes an oppressive form of Foucauldian “knowledge-power” that rearranges family relationships in sociosyntonic but emotionally harmful ways. Continued identification of psychoanalysis with Oedipal theory poses an obstacle to fresh psychoanalytic thinking and psychoanalytic credibility. To liberate psychoanalysis from its Oedipal shackles, a clear understanding of the theory's faulty origins and deleterious effects is essential.

Objectives and methods

This paper distills the conclusions of two recent books that consider how and why Freud staunchly defended the Oedipal theory and the deleterious effects on the modern family that resulted. After the failure of his seduction theory, Freud developed the Oedipal theory to defend his central theoretical claim, the sexual theory of the neuroses. However, the Oedipal theory remained an entirely ad hoc, scientifically unpersuasive defense without novel evidential support less dependent on psychoanalytic method, which had also been cast into doubt by the seduction theory's failure. Freud attempted to provide such “more direct” evidence in the case of Little Hans, on which my analysis focuses. Regarding the evaluation of Freud's evidence, the method is philosophy-of-science logical reconstruction, analysis, and evaluation of the arguments Freud offered. Regarding the theory's effects, the method is neo-Foucauldian analysis of how acceptance of the theory changed family power relations — that is, the theory's knowledge-power.

Results

I identify four pivotal arguments Freud presents in the Hans case to support Oedipal theory. Each argument is brilliant as a logical construction but unsound when compared to the evidence of the Hans case history. I then analyze the knowledge-power of the Oedipal theory as it appears in the Hans case as well as in modern family life. Acceptance or awareness of the theory serves to create a sense of danger in mother-son physical affection, leading to separation of children from parents — especially at bedtime — and thus protection of the marital bed in the new era of egalitarian sexual and emotional marriage that started at about the time that the Oedipal theory was proposed.

Conclusions

Freud's arguments defending Oedipal theory are brilliantly conceived, but Freud misreads the facts of the Hans case so that his arguments are unsound. In failing to confirm novel predictions, Freud's Oedipal theory remains ad hoc and scientifically unacceptable. It was nonetheless widely accepted because of its distinctive knowledge-power, which supported the evolving nature of marriage in a way that limited parent–child interaction, cosleeping, and affection. The theory of the Oedipus complex is both false and harmful, and in clinical intervention it is a form of theoretical countertransference.