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The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 63, No. 4, December 2003 ( 2003) The concept of oedipal shame is not one that has been generally adopted by the psychoanalytic community. In working on my Disappearing Persons: Shame and Appearance (SUNY, 2002), I stumbled onto the concept while searching for a way of expressing the relation between shame and the tragic situation in Sophocles. In this respect, the concept is associated directly with the shame of Oedipus, the Oedipus of Sophocles (as distinct from the Oedipus of Freud). Oedipal shame thus expresses an intractable conflict: Oedipus cannot know his fate, for if he does he is doomed. Yet, his not knowing brings about the very outcome he has tried to avert; his hubris causes plagues and devastation. Over and above specific dynamics of the play, this kind of situation—which depicts humankind as caught up in forces that cannot be understood and if they are will diminish and destroy them—seems particu- larly important for psychoanalytic practice because human experience is more often wrapped up with failed struggles and inconsolable losses than psychoanalytic theory and practice allow for. An awareness of these dimen- sions of human experience is, I think, usefully associated
The American Journal of Psychoanalysis – Springer Journals
Published: Oct 11, 2004
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