ABSTRACT
Analytic master narratives, notably the Oedipus complex, both express and conceal core assumptions and biases about sexuality, gender, economic and political power, difference and similarity, intergenerational and intragenerational dynamics, as well as often rigid and authoritarian theoretical and epistemological schemes within analytic institutions. The Oedipal framework may have been a bastion for the early analysts, as the benign empires that had provided some protection from mass violence dissipated into the murderous wars and genocides of the first decades of twentieth-century Europe. This chapter considers the shift toward an emphasis on maternal care, and the particular position of the author as a relatively senior, white, cis, straight male.
