ABSTRACT
The relationship of Laius and Oedipus seems an inescapable model for succession in psychoanalytic organizations. A generation before Sophocles told the story of Oedipus and his disastrous triumph, Aeschylus gave an account of Orestes, caught in a comparable web of family conflict. Psychoanalytic institutions extrapolating from the myth of Orestes find the lessons that can guide us as we seek to address the organizational dilemma of succession. Three points are made. First, we must create the mechanisms and procedures that will permit us to make judgments on behalf of the community. Secondly, we have to build into our communities a respect for the darker and find ways of acknowledging them and integrating them into our institutional lives. There is a third point: attention to the historical and social realities that form the context for our institutional lives. The whole field of prolonged and intensive psychotherapeutic treatment is in serious decline. Several irreversible social trends have combined to bring this about.
