title: OEDIPUS REX: WHERE ARE WE GOING, ESPECIALLY WITH FEMALES?
abstract: The Oedipus myth usefully informs triangulated object relations, though males, females, and "humankind" can become overly interchangeable. Freud's intentions to enlighten sexed gender are nowadays obscured. In 1931, he rejected Oedipus for females. Counterreactive gender blindness forecloses exploration about female development. Loewald's (1979) view of Oedipus Rex emancipates male heterosexuals from a recurring (universal), regressive pull back to mother. Ogden (1987) offers further insights into earliest female development. The author suggests a lifelong, progressive trajectory of mother/daughter closeness, in synch with a girl's shared slow body development into maturity and childbearing. Freeing the female dyad from obligatory pathological interpretation may inspire fresh sex and gender clinical theory.
authors.affiliation: Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, a Staff Psychiatrist in the Department of Student Mental Health and Counseling at Yale University Health Services, and a Training and Supervising Analyst at Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis.
authors.forename: Rosemary H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Balsam
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005619:Freudian Theory; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D009813:Oedipus Complex
keywords: Female sex and gender; Persephone; female bodies; nonpathological female dyads; oedipal myth