Oedipal determinants in differential outcome of bereavement.

Publisher: British Psychological Society Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 0370640 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0007-1129 (Print) Linking ISSN: 00071129 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Br J Med Psychol Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: Letchworth Eng : British Psychological Society
Original Publication: London [etc.]

Death* ; Grief* ; Oedipus Complex* ; Parents* ; Psychoanalytic Theory*; Adult ; Female ; Guilt ; Humans ; Male ; Marriage ; Parent-Child Relations ; Reality Testing ; Sex Factors ; Work

According to psychoanalytic theory, a bereaved individual's prior relationship with the lost person affects his vulnerability to bereavement. Freud attributed the vulnerability to the intensity of ambivalence, and Fenichel saw Oedipal rivalry as one example of that ambivalence. It is argued that, after the death of a parent, reality testing, crucial to the resolution of the Oedipus complex, is disrupted differently for children of the same sex, from those of the opposite sex. Based on Freud's and Fenichel's clinical observations, the effects of disrupted reality testing were transformed into a testable hypothesis. The predictions were validated by testing them against the data supplied by patients before they had any professional contact, when two-thirds of bereaved psychotherapy patients exhibited different effects when the deceased parent was of the same sex, from when he/she was of the opposite sex. A majority of the same-sex children develop an unconscious sense of guilt, which blocks their expression of Oedipal attitudes towards both parents and which attacks their capacity to function adequately at work, and in their sex-linked roles; while the opposite-sex children maintain their preference for the dead parent, aversion to the alive one, and have idealized expectations of their lovers or spouses.

Date Created: 19860301 Date Completed: 19860530 Latest Revision: 20190912

20240627

10.1111/j.2044-8341.1986.tb02661.x

3964582