Main description:

Murdered Father, Dead Father: Revisiting the Oedipus Complex examines the progressive construction of the notion of paternal function and its central relevance in psychoanalysis.

The distinction between the murdered (narcissistic) father and the dead father is seen as providing a paradigm for the understanding of different types of psychopathologies, as well as works of literature, anthropology and historical events. New concepts are introduced, such as "a father is being beaten", and a distinction between the descriptive apres coup and the dynamic apres coup that provides a model for a psychoanalytic understanding of temporality. The book includes a reflection on how the concepts of the death instinct and the negative, in their connection with that which is at the limits of representability, are an aid to an understanding of Auschwitz, a moment of rupture in European culture that the author characterizes as " the murder of the dead father".

Perelberg's book is an important clinical and intellectual marker, and will be required reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as students in all these disciplines.

Contents:

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Gregorio Kohon

Introduction

PART I
Paternal function: Theoretical and clinical considerations

1. Murdered father, dead father: Revisiting the Oedipus complex

2. "A Father Is Being Beaten"

PART II
Thirdness and temporality

3. Paternal function and thirdness in psychoanalysis and legend: Has the future been foretold?

4. The uncanny: Thirdness and temporality

PART III
Is the Oedipus complex universal?

5. The enigma of Oedipus in psychoanalysis and social anthropology

6. The structuring function of the Oedipus complex

PART IV
The murder of the dead father

7. The murder of the dead father as habitus

Postscript

Glossary

References

Index