ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how enactments are influenced by the mytho-symbolic narratives of the patriarchy and fatherhood and how this aspect of the unconscious is pertinent to understanding the current sociopolitical situation. Building off of Freud’s ‘paternal principle,’ Kohut’s ‘idealizing selfobject’ and Lacan’s ‘le nom du père,’ Braucher explores how the father is largely a transference phenomenon enacted by the child. Providing examples from practice, literature, cinema, and life, he expands the notion of the ‘paternal principle’ arguing for the ‘power principle,’ that is, how the child imbues the father with his power, rendering him paradoxically in a vulnerable position. Considering that the father’s power is dependent on the child’s perception of him as powerful, the child is free to eventually attribute that same power to others, rendering the original father obsolete. Clinical vignettes are used to demonstrate how, despite a patriarchy in decline, the patriarch of the father’s own childhood remains as an unconscious ‘paternal bastion’ holding men accountable to this archaic and patriarchic ideal, while no longer being perceived as powerful by his children and without the support of the patriarchal systems of the past.
