YA No. 1 (57) 2024 Oedipality

Introduction

From time to time, when studying the topic of Oedipal development, doubts and questions arise among students—is psychoanalysis not outdated? Usually, these reactions reflect the tension that arises from comparing "how and when it should be" with "how it is for me." Any information about the norms of psychological development can become a painful topic that evokes many defenses. Yet, what is the relationship between age-related developmental norms and the astonishing pace of social change? Can we say that modern culture significantly alters the content of children's and adolescents' sexual development? Or, what exactly does culture influence, and what remains archetypally unchanged?

Let us turn to how ideas about the Oedipus complex were formed: B. Allen-Dupré recounts the stories of little Hans and Anna—the "first children of psychoanalysis," whose cases embodied ideas about the content of child sexual development. We will see how Freud's interpretive method was complemented by Jung's observational approach, which gave space to the natural processes of the Self. In another work, the same author illustrates this topic with the case of four-year-old Eve, with whom we will embark on a journey through the heterogeneous currents of the Oedipal situation. This, and the subsequent case of five-year-old Benny (article by I. Taverna), show that the complexities of the Oedipal situation lie both in the heterogeneity of internal tasks and in the fact that a child often has to simultaneously solve tasks from previous developmental stages, complicated by unfavorable life circumstances. However, it is precisely in this that the triumph of Oedipality lies—a unique chance to deal with both, to gain identity, and to build psychic structures that we will rely on in our subsequent development. The second chance will be given to us by adolescence, where other problems are often hidden behind sexuality—this is discussed in the articles by A. Nathanson, A. Rozova, and A. Telepina.

A special section of the issue is the analysis of the modern cultural context that influences individual perceptions of adult/child, normal/pathological, male/female. Here we will turn to works from non-psychological fields, and they will add complexity and volume to the perception of the collective. For example, philosopher N. Artemenko recognizably describes the landscape of modernity—with the idea of infinite growth and multiplication of possibilities, where a person is offered to "choose oneself" like on a supermarket shelf under the guise of "personal growth." And just as familiar appears the "psychologized" generation with personal boundaries elevated to a cult, attitudes towards convenience in relationships with other people and with life itself. S. Pereslegin continues the discussion about the specifics of generations, embedding individual development in the social context—with a complex system of economic, political, demographic, and other tasks invisible to psychologists, the influence of which also leads to the blurring of developmental norms... Thus, the collective unconscious can become a "fair wind" or an insurmountable obstacle in identity development, as we will see in the clinical and mythological stories of A. Vorobyeva and S. Kumchenko.

What does all this mean for analysts? This is discussed in E. Vasilyeva's article "The Analyst's Gender Individuation," and we will conclude our conversation with her quote: "To be human is precisely to combine the masculine and feminine principles. The analyst's gender individuation is, of course, their attempt to rise to the human level, without being afraid of terrifying, insane archetypal experiences."

Maria Loseva, Elena Purtova

Contents

Viewpoint

Elena Vasilyeva. The Analyst's Gender Identity

Oedipal Development

Brigitte Allen-Dupré. The First Children of Psychoanalysis. Family Secrets

Brigitte Allen-Dupré. I'm Going to Steal This Sausage. The Work of Identification in Psychotherapy

Isabelle Taverna. Between Masochism and Sexuation: Calimero Becomes a Rooster

Adolescent Oedipus

Anastasia Rozova, Anna Telepina. Fanfiction as a Way of Exploring Teenage Girls' Sexuality

Ariel Nathanson. Embracing the Darkness. Working with Adolescents and Young Adults Addicted to Sexual Acting Out

Culture and the Collective Unconscious

Alexandra Vorobyeva. Mastopathy as a Symbol of Negative Femininity in Women

Sergei Kumchenko. In a Trance: Deepening into Transgenderism

Natalia Artemenko. The Therapeutic Ethos of the Tyranny of Choice: How We Are Taught to Manage Our Feelings and Why We Continue to Suffer?

Sergei Pereslegin. The Humanitarian Foundations of Demography: The Dialectics of Generations