Main description:

To what extent are the concepts of fatherhood and family, as proposed by Sigmund Freud, still valid?

Psychoanalysis, Fatherhood, and the Modern Family traces the development of Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex and discusses his ideas in the context of recent psychoanalytic work, new sociological data, and theoretical explorations on gender and diversity. Contributors include representatives from many academic disciplines, as well as practicing psychoanalysts who reflect on their experience with patients. Their exciting essays break new ground in defining who a father is-and what a father may be.

Contents:

1. Introduction: Psychoanalysis, Fatherhood, and the Work of MourningPart I Freud Discovers Oedipus2. The Road to Thebes: Freud and French Retrospective Medicine3. The Dawn of the Oedipus Complex: A Tale of Two LettersPart II The Oedipus Complex After Freud4. Freud's Oedipal Myth and Lacan's Critique5. Deleuze-Guattari and the End of Oedipus6. The Nuclear Family and Its Discontents: Freud, Jung, and Szondi and the Persistence of the DynastyPart III Private and Public Fathers7. Black Fathers, Oedipal Issues, and Modernity8. Does a Father Need to be a Man?9. Blindness and Repair in Institutional Psychoanalysis: A Brief History10. A Fatherless Nation: Alexander Mitscherlich Analyzes Post-War GermanyPart IV Media Matters11. The Planetary Father Function12. What is Called Father? (A Fissure in Familialism)