ABSTRACT
The tale of Oedipus highlights the difficulties encountered when a person attempts to make a relationship with an incestuous object. The legend of Oedipus is an aetiological myth that sets out the consequences of breaking with the natural order of society. The legend can be taken to exemplify the concept of hamartia— the idea of the individual having a “fatal flaw”. This “fatal flaw” is seen as having been decreed by the gods, before the individual’s birth, and so the individual makes the mistakes he does in ignorance and innocence, not from malice or malign intent. Psychotherapy provides one with the armour to ward off the potential toxic effects of one’s “fault-line”. Without psychotherapy, the individual who has endured a trauma, for example, sexual abuse by a parent during childhood, will forever throughout his life be vulnerable to make the same mistakes when faced with the “stimulus” time and time again.
