The Psychoanalyst’s Oedipus Complex and Vulnerability

Theory and practice of psychoanalysis

Abstract

The Oedipus complex, as an intrapsychic structure, is inherent in every human being. Each of us once stood at the Oedipal "crossroads" and passed through the millstones of ambivalent emotions associated with the triangular relationship "mother – me – father". Human nature is impossible to overcome, and our Oedipal experiences never disappear. Hence, the analyst, like his or her client, carries early childhood experience throughout his or her whole life. This determines the analyst's intrapsychic and interpersonal development as well as his or her thinking, psychic reality, and narcissistic vulnerability. All these factors make an analyst who he or she is, underpinning, among other things, his or her personal motivation for being analyst and the way he or she conducts analysis. Since the analyst’s only tool is himself or herself, everything depends on his or her awareness of what motives and needs he or she satisfies as well as on what he or she both sacrifices and gain by working with clients. The issues of the Oedipus complex and the analyst's vulnerability have historically been neglected, not only as a subject of scientific research, but also in analysts' personal analysis. This article is an attempt to study what it is not customary to talk about in psychoanalytic communities – something that remains unspoken, undisclosed and even secret both in the analyst's life and consulting room.