Attachment, Sexuality, Power

Oedipal Theory as Regulator of Family Affection in Freud’s Case of Little Hans

Jerome C. Wakefield

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032224107
• eBook ISBN: 9781136726958
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology

In Attachment, Sexuality, Power, Jerome C. Wakefield challenges established views of Freudian psychoanalysis by applying Foucault's concept of 'power/knowledge' to Freud's case of Little Hans, illuminating the role that Oedipal theory has played in reorganizing intimate family relationships.

Combining close examination of the Hans case with accounts of the history of marriage and psychology of co-sleeping, this book argues that the Oedipal theory achieved prominence because its implications for family dynamics supported changing social values. Wakefield identifies a previously overlooked reason for Hans's anxiety—his father attempted to protect Hans from his supposed Oedipal desires by separating Hans from his mother. Thus, Wakefield argues, the father's exercise of power based on his belief in Oedipal theory, not an actual Oedipus complex, caused Hans's vulnerability to anxiety—revealing the theory's potential to cause harm by distancing children from their parents, even as such distancing made the theory socially appealing.

This book's novel and carefully documented articulation of the mechanisms of power by which Oedipal theory exerts its influence on family life will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists alike, and essential for scholars in the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy of science and the history of psychiatry.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction: Oedipal Theory and Family Power
• 2. The Graf Family’s Dynamics as Background to the Little Hans Case
• 3. Little Hans and Attachment Theory: Bowlby’s Interpretation Reconsidered
• 4. Oedipal Power/Knowledge: The Sexualization of Attachment and the Regulation of Mother–Son Affection
• 5. Bowlby Versus the Spoiling Theory: Understanding the Prohibitory Nature of Oedipal Power/Knowledge
• 6. Olga Honig’s Resistance to Oedipal Power/Knowledge
• 7. Trauma Theory and the Perpetuation of Mother-Bashing: Did Olga Honig’s Abusive Parenting Cause Hans’s Phobia?
• 8. The Social Context of the Oedipal Theory: Children as a Challenge to Emerging Ideals of Marital Harmony
• 9. Bed Time: Oedipal Power/Knowledge, Cosleeping, and the Modern Struggle Over the Child’s Sharing of the Marital Bed
• 10. Family Systems, Lacan, DSM, and Looping: Four Alternative Perspectives on Little Hans
• 11. Final Thoughts: Oedipal Power/Knowledge and the Future of Psychoanalysis
• Index