The International Journal of

Int J Psychoanal (2011) 92:9851007 doi: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2011.00407.x

The dipus complex, crystallizer of the debate

between psychoanalysis and anthropology1

Eric Smadja
30 rue du Sergent Bauchat, 75012 Paris, France eric_smadja@hotmail.fr

(Final version accepted 13 September 2010)

The way that anthropologists understand the Oedipus complex, in particular, is a

good example of how they understand psychoanalysis in general. Indeed, it has
crystallized a set of reactions marked by ignorance, misunderstanding, distortion
and screening out and at the same time has provoked suspicion among anthropolo-
gists as to psychoanalysis, according to the preconceptions of the various schools of
thought and authors implied, and this from the very first contacts up to nowadays.
In what way did the psychoanalysts contribute to this and what representation did
they, in turn, elaborate of anthropology?
The purpose of this paper is to expose the epistemological and historical
conditions of the emergence of this debate, and then to develop it by following
chronology up to the 1950s and 1960s, while differentiating three major cultural
areas, Great Britain, the USA and France, in order to get a clearer picture. From
that point on, we will try to diversify our inquiry and to formulate some inter-
pretative hypotheses. In particular, we think that a traumatic event may have
inaugurated and organized the history of the relationship between the two disci-
plines, producing a situation of acculturation with multiple impacts, if we identify
them with two cultures coming into contact: what is at stake here is Totem and
Taboo in which Freud carries through the first major psychoanalytical approach of
the interpretation of ethnographic facts, that leads him to transplant the universal-
ity of the Oedipus complex to the very root of the first social institutions and to
pinpoint the presence of unconscious processes in their genesis.

Keywords: anthropology, ethnographic data, Oedipus complex, schools of

psychoanalysis, Totem and Taboo

By way of introduction
Why choose such a title to relate a history of the relational vicissitudes
between these two disciplines born in the 19th century? It seemed to me that
the Oedipus complex, a central concept of psychoanalysis, has crystallized,
in fact, a set of manifestations of misrecognition, misunderstandings,
distortions, and evasions, as well as an attitude of defiance on the part of
anthropologists towards psychoanalysis, in different ways, depending on the
schools of thought and the authors, from the very beginning of their
encounter right up until the present day. Thus the picture of the Oedipus
formed by anthropologists could be said to be paradigmatic of the picture
they developed of psychoanalysis.

1
Translated by Andrew Weller.

Copyright 2011 Institute of Psychoanalysis

Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the Institute of Psychoanalysis
986 E. Smadja

Which object(s) of conflict, or rejection, within psychoanalysis, might be

found to hide and symbolize the Oedipus complex and its universality? Why
are there such different and contrasting reactions? What might the latent
motives be? In terms of group psychoanalysis, what might be the underlying
fantasy be in anthropologists and psychoanalysts alike? But, also, what are
the issues at stake? Are they really scientific or of another nature? What role
has psychoanalysis played in this conflictual history, in particular with
regards to its representation and manner of dealing with socio-cultural and
historical reality?
Could an exploration of the epistemological and methodological charac-
teristics of the two disciplines, as well as their differences and similarities,
provide us with some elements of intelligibility? And what may be said about
their respective histories and how they contribute to a richer understanding?
Beyond this conflictual history between these two human sciences, what
does it tell us about the history of ideas and of their processes and modes
of communication within the vast, limited and unlimited field of knowledge,
which is constantly changing because it is living?
There can be no doubt that a plurality of factors added complexity from
the outset to the conditions in which this debate emerged a debate that
was to evolve in several stages and in different places.
I propose first to set out the epistemological and historical conditions
which formed the background to this debate, and then to develop it follow-
ing a chronological thread up until the years 19501960,2 while differentiat-
ing three major cultural areas, Great Britain, the USA and France, for the
sake of greater intelligibility. I will then propose some answers to these
diverse questions and suggest some possible avenues of research.

Historical and epistemological conditions

According to Michel Foucault, the 19th century provided the conditions of
existence for the human sciences. The object that psychoanalysis and anthro-
pology give themselves, the contiguous position that these disciplines
occupy, and the function that they have within the general space of the epi-
steme, as well as their singular configuration, led Foucault to examine the
particular relations between them. Thus, in The Order of Things (Foucault,
1970), he refers to a perpetual principle of dissatisfaction, of calling into
question (p. 373), engendered by two bodies of knowledge. By producing a
decentring of the subject, as much in relation to his own cultural references,
confronting him with the strangeness of cultural diversity, as in relation to
the illusory omnipresence and omnipotence of his conscious mind, leading
him to discover the unconscious depths of the psyche, both these disciplines
proved themselves to be fundamentally dangerous within the human sciences
and, consequently, shared this profound destabilizing property.
The two principal founders of anthropology are the Briton Edward Burnett
Tylor (18321917) and the American Lewis Henry Morgan (18181881),

2
The contemporary debate is discussed in my book Le complexe ddipe, cristallisateur du dbat
psychanalyse anthropologie (Smadja, 2009).

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 The dipus complex 987

who belonged to the first school of thought, evolutionism, which dominated

the second half of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century.
Very early on, the first anthropologists were struck by the similarities that
existed between the customs and institutions of distinct and geographically
distant cultures. In the 19th century, evolutionism made it possible to
explain these similarities by the thesis of convergence. According to this
view, all societies have undergone transformation by going through the same
stages and by evolving in the same direction. It was a question of account-
ing for the unique trajectory of humanity, the aim being to isolate the
successive stages involved and the laws governing them the underlying pos-
tulate being the universality of the human mind.
From the end of the 19th century onwards, this framework of evolutionist
thought no longer seemed adequate for explaining the sum total of ethno-
graphic observations. In this critical context, new interpretive models then
appeared, among which was the diffusionist school, which was flourishing
at the beginning of the 20th century (Friedrich Ratzel as early as 1882; Lo
Frobnius, 1898; Fritz Graebner, 1905, 1911). For these anthropo-geogra-
phers, the similarities between the cultural traits of distinct societies had to
be related to phenomena involving contacts in the past between the geo-
graphically distant cultures concerned.
Psychoanalysis, created by Sigmund Freud at the end of the 19th century,
was constituted both as a corpus of knowledge, a method for investigating
the unconscious, and a means of treating neurotic disorders. As a result of
his self-analysis and then his clinical practice, Freud discovered the Oedipus
complex which was to become a central concept of psychoanalysis one
that had required a long period of elaboration (18971923), i.e. 26 years).
Considering it as an organizer of the human mind, Freud speculated on its
universality, irrespective of historical and socio-cultural conditions. With this
question of the universality of the Oedipus complex, he encountered the
evolutionist postulate of the unity of the human mind and of the unique
historical trajectory of humanity, which hindered, from the outset, the con-
ditions of dialogue between the two disciplines.
In Totem and Taboo, Freud (1913) carried out the first major attempt to
interpret ethnographic findings psychoanalytically. This led him to posit in
particular the universality of the Oedipus complex, which he deemed to be
at the very foundation of the first social institutions, and which was to
become an essential constituent of the Freudian theory of culture. However,
this Oedipus complex was a concept that underwent modifications. In 1912
1913, it only concerned the positive component of the boy and its phylogen-
esis. Its complete form was only described in 1923 in The Ego and the Id
(Freud, 1923). The girls oedipal complex would only be envisaged later in
his contributions on female sexuality.
Totem and Taboo was published in 1918 in New York and in 1919 in Lon-
don. At that time, anthropology was undergoing a profound reshaping,
affecting simultaneously its theoretical, practical and institutional orienta-
tions. In fact, at the theoretical level, unilinear evolutionism was clearly in
sharp decline, while new schools of thought were flourishing such as diffu-
sionism and functionalism in Europe and culturalism in the United States.

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988 E. Smadja

At the same time, only trained and specialized research workers were
involved in fieldwork.

Chronological development of the debate

In Great Britain
During World War I, William Halse Rivers Rivers (18641922) and Charles
Gabriel Seligman (18731940), who were dominant figures in British
anthropology and trained doctors, were led to discover and interest them-
selves in psychoanalysis by treating soldiers suffering from traumatic war
neuroses. The medical world in which they practised was closely interested
in the new psychotherapeutic methods, and it was within this context that
they discovered Freuds Studies on Hysteria (Freud and Breuer, 1895) and,
above all, The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900), which appeared to
them as a privileged means of exploring the mental life of their patients.
Both Rivers and Seligman were impressed by these works by Freud but
they developed a very critical relationship towards what they discovered and
were able to understand psychoanalysis both as a theory of the human mind
and as a means of treating neuroses. In particular, they were to reject the
importance attached to infantile sexuality which, according to Seligman,
constituted a regrettable excrescence of psychoanalysis.
However, Seligman decided to test the validity of Freuds theses by
confronting them not only with his hospital observations but also with his
ethnographic material.
It was Bronislaw Malinowski (18441942) who really got the debate or
controversy going by making three major assertions, each one bound up
with the others, after his fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands from 1915
to 1918, spurred on by his teacher, C. G. Seligman, who asked him at
the beginning of 1918 to test the possibility of applying Freuds theses
to the Trobrianders.
As Bertrand Pulman (2002) observes: Malinowskis fieldwork in the Tro-
briand Islands was systematically presented as the principal founding
moment of modern ethnography, the object of considerable mythical elabo-
ration (p. 57), with Malinowski as the first anthropologist to theorize on
the basis of preliminary fieldwork experience, thus inaugurating a new
system of truth of anthropological discourse based on the new model of
ethnographic authority.
Before his departure for Oceania, Malinowski had no knowledge of
psychoanalytic theory. It was only in 1924, four years after his return to
Europe, and two years after the publication of his monograph, Argonauts of
the Western Pacific (Malinowski, 1922) that, according to Pulman, he read
the Three Essays, the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Totem and
Taboo and Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.
The three main texts in which Malinowski enters into a debate with
psychoanalysis are: Psychoanalysis and anthropology in Nature (1923); Psycho-
analysis and anthropology in Psyche (1924), translated and published in Imago;
and Complex and myth in mother-right in Psyche (1925).

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 The dipus complex 989

Malinowski asserts that there is a great deal of sexual freedom among the
Trobrianders and that the psychosexual development of the child does not
follow the stages described by S. Freud (in particular, there is no anal ero-
tism and no latency period). He adds that there is a total ignorance of the
mechanisms of physiological paternity. The Oedipus complex, which is
absent in the Trobrianders, cannot therefore be said to be universal. How-
ever, there is a nuclear complex specific to matrilineal societies in the context
of which the boys incestuous wishes are directed towards his sister, whilst
his hostile impulses are turned against his maternal uncle.
In a general way, with reference to the particular case of the Trobianders,
Malinowski wanted to underline the very restricted sociological significance
of Freuds theses by showing that he had not taken into consideration the
diversity of social and familial configurations.
The psychoanalyst Ernest Jones (18791958) criticized these propositions
in a lecture given on 19 November 1924 at the British Psychoanalytical Soci-
ety entitled, Mother-right and sexual ignorance of savages, at which
B. Malinowski was present. In Joness view, the matrilineal system with its
avuncular complex represents a means of defence against primordial oedi-
pal tendencies, particularly, hostility towards the father which needs to be
deflected (Jones, 1925, p. 120).
Malinowski responded to Jones in 1927 with his book, Sex and Repression
in Savage Society (Malinowski, 1927), in which he maintains his assertions
and adopts a tougher position with respect to psychoanalysis. In 1928, Jones
published a very incisive review of this book.
Pulman (1991), for his part, writes: Notwithstanding an accumulation of
contradictory evidence, the posterity of Malinowskis affirmations in con-
temporary anthropological doxa is absolutely astounding from both an
ethnographic and psychoanalytic point of view (p. 434).
Following Malinowski, at the beginning of the 1930s, the principal aca-
demic figures of British anthropology, notably A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and
E. E. Evans-Pritchard, expressed clear defiance towards psychoanalysis
which they generally chose to ignore.
Malinowskis work motivated Gza Roheim (18911953) to set off for
Australia and Melanesia. It seemed indeed that the time had come for a
psychoanalyst and ethnologist to go and see things for himself. The expedition
project became possible thanks to financial assistance from Marie Bonaparte.
Thus, from 1928 to 1931, he did fieldwork successively in Somalia, Australia,
on Normanby Island, and then in Arizona amongst the Yuma. On Normanby
Island, a matrilineal society close to the Trobriand Islands, he revealed, with
the help of techniques of investigation such as the analysis of dreams and the
childrens play in particular, the existence of repressed oedipal impulses
among its members. His first results were published in 1932 in the Interna-
tional Journal of Psycho-Analysis, thereby responding to Malinowskis
affirmations, who unfortunately offered no reaction.
In Psychoanalysis and Anthropology Roheim writes:
Since in the first five to ten years of his life the child has lived with his father and
his mother, and it is only after this that he goes to his uncle, how can we assume

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990 E. Smadja
that he starts with an avuncular complex instead of an Oedipus complex? Indeed,
Malinowski himself states the facts clearly and in such a manner as to invalidate his
own theory completely. The child starts life in the oedipal situation with an Oedipus
complex. In the prepuberty phase, society sets up another, more severe father for
him to contend with. This is the maternal uncle. It is therefore possible to shift
some of the hostility from the father to the uncle.

(Roheim, 1950, p. 167)

In the United States

The debate began as early as 1920, in a rather conflictual manner, with the
two major figures of anthropology, F. Boas and A. L. Kroeber.
Franz Boas (18581942) was the founding father of American anthropol-
ogy (Boas, 1920). He was the founder of the culturalist school and initially
saw psychoanalysis as encouraging a regression to the vast comparative
syntheses of unilinear evolutionism with universalist psychological preten-
sions.
Alfred Louis Kroeber (18761960) was the spokesman for the anthropo-
logical criticisms of Totem and Taboo, with his first article published in 1920
in American Anthropologist. In spite of his activity as a psychoanalyst from
19181920 in San Francisco, he remained markedly ambivalent towards
psychoanalysis all his life, which is particularly clear in his text on Totem
and Taboo where he states from the outset that he represents historical eth-
nology. His criticisms concern the content which he contests, on the grounds
that it is highly conjectural, the method and the construction of its
argument, and its sources relative to so-called speculative evolutionist
anthropology. He observes an essential failure of its final objective and
deplores this precipitate entry into anthropology as well as certain flimsy
syntheses. However, he recognizes the importance of the questions raised
by Freud, his fecund imagination and his keen insight.
He writes:
But, with all the essential failure of its finally avowed purpose, the book is an
important and valuable contribution. However much cultural anthropology may
come to lean more on the historical instead of the psychological method, it can
never ultimately free itself, nor should it wish to, from the psychology that underlies
it. To this psychology the psychoanalytic movement initiated by Freud has made an
indubitably significant contribution, which every ethnologist must sooner or later
take into consideration. For instance, the correspondences between taboo customs
and compulsion neuroses are unquestionable, as also the parallelism between
the two aspects of taboo and the ambivalence of emotions under an accepted prohi-
bition. Again the strange combination of mourning for the dead with the fear of
them and taboos against them is certainly illumined if not explained by this theory
of ambivalence. It is even possible to extend Freuds point of view.

(Kroeber, 1920, p. 53)

At the beginning of the 1930s, the axis of the debate between psycho-
analysis and anthropology was clearly centred in the United States.

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The situation changed with the appearance of the so-called Culture and
Personality school, led in particular by Abram Kardiner (18911981), using
somewhat behaviourist and distorted psychoanalytic concepts to describe
the interactions between the child, the family environment, and culture,
affirming the variable nature of the socialization processes of the child and
calling into question the universality of the Oedipus complex. The problem
of the relations between psychoanalysis and anthropology were posed in
terms of the primacy of sociological factors.
In 1936, Kardiner created a seminar at the New York Psychoanalytic
Institute which played a decisive role in constituting this anthropological
trend that was attentive to the dialogue between the two disciplines. In
1937, meetings were held at Columbia with the participation of Edward
Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Cora du Bois and, last but not least, Ralph Linton,
with whom he was to write his first book, The Individual and His Society
(Kardiner, 1939), in which he writes: It is not the Oedipus complex that
creates social organization, but vice versa (p. 246).
We must also mention the arrival of European psychoanalysts, in particu-
lar of German origin, such as Erich Fromm (19001980) and Karen Horney
(18851952) (see Fromm, 1971; Horney, 1937).
Belonging to the new American psychoanalysis and adhering to culturalist
perspectives, they attributed considerable importance to socio-cultural fac-
tors in the aetiology and treatment of mental illnesses, subjecting Freudian
theory to serious distortions. Thus Fromm and Horney contested in particu-
lar the universality of the Oedipus complex, which they considered as a
product of modern civilization and characteristic only of the middle class.
This major refutation by psychoanalysts was an unprecedented phenomenon
in the recent history of psychoanalysis as well as in the conflictual relations
with anthropologists.
One of Fromms great contributions, it seems to me, was his attempt to
elaborate an analytic psycho-sociology articulating Freudian theory and
Marxs historical materialism.
Georges Devereux (19081985) was an anthropologist before becoming an
analyst, in the United States and then in France. He envisaged the relations
between psychoanalysis and anthropology in an innovative way, establishing
complementary relations between them. In particular, he based the relations
between anthropology and psychoanalysis on the uniformity of both culture
and the human psyche, and was the creator of two new disciplines: comple-
mentary ethnopsychoanalysis and ethnopsychiatry.
In an article entitled Culture and the unconscious, published in his book
Ethnopsychoanalysis: Psychoanalysis and Anthropology as Complementary
Frames of Reference, he puts forward three postulates and a conclusion of
considerable import for our consideration:
(1) The psychical unity of humanity, which includes its capacity for extreme vari-
ability; (2) the principle of limited possibilities; and (3) the finding that is out in the
open and even culturally implemented in one society is often repressed in other
societies. The foregoing postulates lead to one inescapable conclusion: if all psycho-
analysts were to draw up a complete list of all the impulses, wishes, and fantasies
elicited in a clinical setting, this list could be matched point by point by a list of all

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992 E. Smadja
known and all the known cultural beliefs and devices drawn up by anthropologists.
This conclusion is necessarily true since fantasies and cultural items alike are prod-
ucts of the human mind, and therefore of the unconscious.

(Devereux, 1955, pp. 767)

In France
The school of sociology founded by Emile Durkheim (18581917) was to
mark on a long-term basis a certain tradition of French thought. The per-
spective of a dialogue, or of any sort of interest for psychology, and even
less for psychoanalysis, seemed to be excluded with Durkheimian sociology,
which asserted the primacy of society over the individual and posed the
explanation of one social phenomenon by another social phenomenon as
one of the major rules of sociological method (Durkheim, 1895).
It was his pupil and nephew, Marcel Mauss (18721950), a sociologist
and anthropologist, who participated in the autonomization of anthropol-
ogy in France. If he showed a certain interest for establishing relations
between psychology and sociology (Mauss, 1924), in particular through
the notion of symbolism, it was mainly by referring to and addressing
the dominant figures of French psychology (Thodule Ribot and Pierre
Janet).
Claude Lvi-Strauss (19082009) had the project of exploring mental life
and what conditions it, unconscious thinking and its laws, apprehended by
the study of symbolic systems, language and systems of kinship and myths,
in particular. Ethnology is first of all a psychology, he wrote in The
Savage Mind (Lvi-Strauss, 1966, p. 174), but it is a cognitive psychology.
Affects and drives have no place in it. For him, the psychological is subordi-
nated to the sociological. The unconscious is subject to the principle of all
symbolic systems. But this universal, Lvi-Straussian unconscious is neither
instinctual nor constituted by the repressed. Devoid of content, it is a struc-
turing agency which organizes into discourse elements that are external to
it, and it is also defined by a function namely, the symbolic function. The
dialogue that he was to establish with psychoanalysis took on a conflictual
tone from the outset. In fact, the criticisms formulated in respect of Freuds
ideas begin in the conclusion of his first book, The Elementary Structures of
Kinship (Lvi-Strauss, 1949), on the subject of Totem and Taboo, and
continue to be expressed throughout his work up to The Jealous Potter
(Lvi-Strauss, 1985). Lvi-Strausss influence on the thinking of Jacques
Lacan, in the 1950s, should be emphasized here.
Roger Bastide (18981974), a sociologist and ethnologist, examined the
possibility of a conciliation between the observation, by anthropology and
against the theory of unilinear evolutionism, of the diversity and relativity
of cultures and social institutions, and the implicit postulate of psychoanaly-
sis, the unity and identity of the human mind, irrespective of historical and
cultural variations.
He nonetheless developed a traditionally relativist conception of the Oedi-
pus complex, a sociological formation specific to paternalistic societies

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 The dipus complex 993

(Bastide, 1950, p. 277), thus adhering to Malinowskis thesis and opposing

it Freuds biologizing conception.

General discussion
What and how are we to think about this conflictual history?

Some observations and comments

It poses, in particular, the problem of the relations between two disciplines,
where one of them feels attacked, penetrated in its own territory, and conse-
quently reacts in a variety of defensive ways. The Oedipus complex is
considered as the agent of contamination and aggression and, by extension,
the methodological and theoretical corpus of psychoanalysis, too.
However, let us recall the early stages of this history? Rivers and Seligman
themselves discovered psychoanalysis by reading Studies in Hysteria (Freud
and Breuer, 1895) and The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900), which
they found particularly appealing on account of both the method of investi-
gation and certain concepts and notions such as the unconscious and the
difference between latent and manifest contents. On the other hand,
the importance accorded to infantile sexuality was already subject to a radi-
cal rejection, thus determining from the outset an ambivalent attitude
towards this new discipline of the human sciences. Yet it was Malinowski
who proved to be a central protagonist by virtue of his position and his role,
as well as by the import and major effects of his discourse on the subse-
quent history of the relations between our two disciplines. Indeed it was
Malinowski who elaborated the form and content conferred on our debate,
which have since become paradigmatic for anthropology and the community
of anthropologists in general.

Malinowskis interpretation and manipulations of the Oedipus

complex and their effects
Initially, Malinowski took an ethnographical approach to the Oedipus com-
plex, based on phenomenological observation, and then made a reduction
of the complex by only taking into account the boys in its exclusively direct
and positive form, while disregarding the girls and its inverted negative
form. Furthermore, the relationship of rivalry between son and father was
to be founded on the latters authority and not on the fact that it is he,
exclusively, who possesses and enjoys the mothers body. Lastly, the correl-
ative castration complex was also eliminated. This mode of apprehension
and this exemplary distortion were adopted by the international anthropo-
logical community during this historical period.
Then Malinowski transformed this reduced form into a bio-behavioural
complex, inspired by the work of Alexander Shand, thus subject to the
influence of social factors. So he biologized this central psychoanalytic
concept, interpreting it as being an attribute of human nature, then rela-
tivized it, and established it as a nuclear family complex subject to and
determined by the family organization characteristic of a given society. So

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994 E. Smadja

Freuds great merit was to have discovered the nuclear family complex of
patriarchal families, while Malinowski had discovered that of matriarchal
societies! Furthermore, he discovered the fundamental correlation between
the nuclear complex and the type of family structure linked to a
determined social organization that is, its socio-cultural relativity. His
ethnographic authority allowed him to impose his relativist thesis which
anthropologists would appropriate for multiple reasons, transforming in
the process the Oedipus complex, a bio-behavioural complex considered
to be an attribute of human nature, into a normal social formation
(Bastide, 1950; Kardiner, 1939; Kroeber, 1920) or a pathological one
(Horney, 1937).
Thus Malinowski had answered the question of his teacher, Seligman, and
in so doing had invalidated the central psychoanalytic thesis, the universality
of the Oedipus complex; he had also discovered and established cultural
relativism. From then on, the identity of each of the two disciplines was
established and would be characterized by certain lasting traits over the
course of time.
Through the Oedipus complex, psychoanalysis presented a biological
dimension, with its exploration of the diverse aspects of human nature for
which it claimed universality. Moreover, the biologism of Freudian theory,
representing psychoanalysis as a whole in the eyes of anthropologists, did
not take into account socio-cultural factors that is, it ignored the discover-
ies, writings, interests and contributions of anthropologists and sociologists
to the enrichment of human knowledge. Psychoanalysis imposed, then, its
central thesis of the universality of human nature on anthropologists, and
in so doing asserted its epistemological identity.
Anthropology for its part, which was going through a critical period, built
a new identity for itself by discovering and demonstrating the determining
importance of the socio-cultural factors that influence and shape human
nature. As a consequence, it imposed a new idea of societies and human
cultures, that of cultural diversity, singularity and relativity, which became
not simply a dogma but also the new and lasting mark of identity of this
discipline. This new reading and translationinterpretation of cultures were
to be shared and developed by American anthropology. Indeed, Boas
already supported this relativist option which was radicalized by Benedict
and adopted by the psychoanalysts Fromm and Horney, as well as by the
school culture and personality led by Kardiner.
A historical explanation is necessary to understand this change and the
need of the nascent socio-anthropological relativism to make claims and
assert itself. It was a matter of distancing itself from the first theoretical
approach in the history of this discipline namely, evolutionism, which
upheld the thesis of the unity of the human mind on the basis of the read-
ings and speculations of armchair researchers. In certain respects, psycho-
analysis seemed too reminiscent of this way of thinking which had become
a totalitarian ideology, that is, the view that the unity of the human mind
and of human history is inexorably uniform. Thus the innovating institution
of controlled field-work, that is, of direct observation by trained and
specialized research workers would henceforth underpin the new sovereign

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ideology of cultural relativism. It would be especially predominant in Great

Britain and the United States. On the other hand, in France, a long tradi-
tion of thought, beginning with Comte and continuing until Lvi-Strauss
and Bastide, would nonetheless defend the notion of the unity of the human
mind, in spite of the rejection by Durkheim, Mauss and Lvi-Strauss of
evolutionist ideology, and would link it up with the recognition of social
and cultural diversity. The original position of French anthropology was
characterized, then, by the combination of the unity of the human mind
and the diversity of cultures and histories that is, it demonstrated great
complexity while rejecting psychology or putting it in the service of anthro-
pology.
On the basis of these multiple observations, I propose to outline the repre-
sentation of the Oedipus complex, as elaborated by the anthropologists, for
comparison with that of the psychoanalysts, and then the representation of
psychoanalysis formed by anthropologists, along with that of anthropolo-
gists formed by psychoanalysts, while bearing in mind that they present
variations and evolving forms.

Representations of the Oedipus complex

For psychoanalysts, as I have already mentioned, the Oedipus complex was
initially discovered in boys, first in its positive and then in its negative form,
realizing a complete form that was elaborated in 1923. It was presented as
the summit of infantile sexuality, and the castration complex as its culmina-
tion and path of resolution, in the boy. Girls Oedipus complex was
examined later, along with feminine sexuality. But the Oedipus complex was
also apprehended by Freud as a primal fantasy containing three others
(seduction, castration, primal scene). The Oedipus complex would appear as
a structure (Lacan) and then as a model (Green). The double difference of
the sexes and of the generations, at work at the heart of every family space,
was to constitute the foundation of the Oedipus complex in its anthropo-
logical dimension according to Green (1995, p. 119). The meaning of the
Oedipus complex is thus neither to be a phase nor even only a complex, but
a psychical structure that is constitutive of the subject, giving birth to cul-
tural reformulations that is, to collective symbolizations. Consequently,
the Oedipus complex is foundational to identity and human community.
Unfortunately, anthropologists would often only take account of the boys
Oedipus complex, in its positive form, concerning themselves with the inces-
tuous aspect of desire, while failing to take account of the parricidal wish.
They disregarded, then, the evolution of the Freudian and post-Freudian
conceptualization, the very complexification of this central concept, which is
so rich both in its structuring conflictual dimension and in its dimension of
fantasy, fixing and reducing it to its first stage of elaboration, thus clinging
to an exclusively phenomenological approach which is subject to socio-cul-
tural variations. This inevitably hindered profoundly any possibility of dis-
cussion. A surprising contrast can thus be observed between these two
representations of the Oedipus complex, that of the anthropologists and that
of the psychoanalysts.

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996 E. Smadja

Representations of psychoanalysis
It would seem that the anthropologists of this particular historical period
reduced psychoanalysis to a purely speculative theory, with universalist pre-
tensions, that was fundamentally ethnocentric. What was the position then
concerning its essential vocation as a method of investigation of the uncon-
scious, as well as its clinical foundations and its therapeutic dimension?
Some separated the methodology from its theoretical corpus, using the first
to reject the second. Others selected certain concepts. This reduction and
fragmentation of psychoanalysis were the result of multiple operations of
scotomization and splitting, underpinned notably by defensive motives and
issues to do with ideology and identity.
The relativist perspective of anthropologists at that time was opposed to
the universalist perspective of psychoanalysis. Even if the quest for univer-
sals characterizes structuralism, it is opposed, in another way, to the quest
of psychoanalysis which is reminiscent of the quest of evolutionism. In fact,
it may be that anthropology had rediscovered in psychoanalysis three funda-
mental aspects of its evolutionist childhood: (1) purely speculative thinkers
at home in their studies and armchairs, without field experience; (2) the
postulate of the universality of the human mind and of a uniform human
history, after the fashion of ontogenesis; and (3) an ethnocentric prejudice
transformed into an ethnocentrist scientific norm.
Now modern, mature anthropology insists on full recognition of cultural
diversity, a relativist approach to beliefs, customs and institutions, the major
reference to fieldwork and the rejection of any form of ethnocentrism.
Which is why adhering to the psychoanalytic thesis of the universality of the
Oedipus complex (following the viewpoint of anthropologists) would be a
regression to an evolutionist position from which they want to distance
themselves.
By reproaching psychoanalysts for their speculative thinking and the
absence of practical ethnological experience, they disregard the very source
of their inquiry which is clinical work, the specific terrain of psychoanalysts,
the meeting-place between the plurality of the drives and unconscious fanta-
sies of patients and the diversity of beliefs, customs and institutions of
peoples, according to Devereux. I will come back to this later.
The problem of ethnocentrism, moreover, is somewhat misleading because
it is not in fact characteristic of the Western approach, but fundamentally
constitutive of the social identity of the members of every society. It may be
considered as the very marker of their cultural belonging, thus bearing wit-
ness to the acquisition of a culture and its specific values (Herskovits, 1952).
In fact, anthropologists have discovered, to their great surprise, much more
radical and violent ethnocentric manifestations within many ethnic groups
they have visited, which often designate themselves with a name which
means men humanity thus ceases at the frontiers of their group.
Finally, anthropologists consider that psychoanalysts have a tendency to
reduce the diversity of ethnographic material to a few universals, and not to
recognize the multiple interactive aspects of socio-cultural and historical
reality, which are sources of its surprising complexity.

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Representations of anthropologists elaborated by psychoanalysts

They would easily be identified with patients expressing resistances concern-
ing the truths revealed by psychoanalysts, such as the universality of the
Oedipus complex and, through it, the entire unconscious, instinctual and
fantasmatic depth of psychic life (cf. Jones with Malinowski or Roheim with
the culturalists).
Moreover, psychoanalysts point up their regular disregard for the very
existence of this complex unconscious psychic reality which psychoanalytic
theory strives to make accessible and intelligible, as well as their lack of real
interest leading to misunderstandings, evasions and serious distortions of
notions and concepts. The same is true of the unconscious and the drives,
of repression and the return of the repressed, of infantile sexuality and fan-
tasy, for example.

Elements of intelligibility
A certain number of concepts and notions may help us to find some paths
for understanding: the major anthropological concept of acculturation and
its aspects of diffusion and assimilation, the processes of cultural tendency
and historical accident, among the historical circumstances of cultural
change, as well as the notions of reinterpretation and syncretism, trauma
and identity. Recourse to two analogies will help us, moreover, to form a
conception of this history: the first identifies psychoanalysis and anthropol-
ogy with two cultures; the second with two imaginary bodies, according to
Didier Anzieus theorization (Anzieu, 1984), in contact with each other.
The surprising discovery of Freuds writings by Rivers and Seligman cor-
responds, in the anthropology of cultural change, to an historical accident
which had effects on the evolution of this scienceculture and on its rela-
tions with psychoanalysis. In psychoanalytic terms, the historical accident
finds expression in the collective traumatic event. The psychoanalytic theo-
retical corpus and methodology are innovations, cultural items and foreign
bodies to be welcomed, assimilated, transformed and or rejected totally or
partially. The same goes for the concepts of the unconscious, repression,
transference and resistance, infantile sexuality, fantasy, Oedipus complex, as
well as the notions of latent and manifest, for example. But it was Totem
and Taboo, which, owing to its intrusion, and the inoculation within the
anthropological body of the universality of the Oedipus complex, was to
give full traumatic value and meaning retroactively (through an effect of
aprs-coup) to this discovery of psychoanalysis. From then on, and with
the work of Malinowski followed by other authors, we can interpret or
translate a certain number of facts related in terms of phenomena of accul-
turation, which find expression in different ways and produce different
results. It is worth recalling the definition of acculturation that was estab-
lished by Redfield, Linton and Herskovits, American anthropologists, in a
sub-committee of the Social Science Research Council: Acculturation com-
prehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having
different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact with subsequent

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998 E. Smadja

changes in the culture patterns of either or both groups (1936, p. 149).

According to this definition, acculturation must be distinguished from the
cultural change of which it is only one aspect, and from assimilation which
is sometimes a phase of acculturation. We should also distinguish between
diffusion which, although present in all cases of acculturation, is a phenom-
enon that not only occurs independently of any contact between peoples, of
the kind specified in the definition given above, but also only constitutes
one aspect of the process of acculturation (Herskovits, 1938, p. 10). Thus
Freudian psychoanalysis (lending group) may be said to have handed down
to anthropology (borrowing group), as Bastide (1950, p. 175) points out:
The constitution of a methodology based on the generalization of morbid pro-
cesses to the explanation of normal social processes Psychoanalysis does not
interest us in itself, but in its application to sociology. However, contemporary soci-
ologists seem to distinguish, in psychoanalysis, between the method and the doc-
trinal content, in order to use the first while rejecting the second.
But, as method and doctrinal content are historically and structurally
interdependent, this would be a serious epistemological impertinence.
The universality of the Oedipus complex, like infantile sexuality, repre-
sents a good example of the rejection of doctrinal content mentioned by
Bastide. Moreover, as Devereux (1955) points out, new contacts between
two culturally different groups represent for them a critical situation. The
adoption of a new trait, he notes, regardless of its magnitude, invariably
challenges the adopting culture insofar as the new trait has to be geared to,
and articulated with, the remainder of the culture (Devereux, 1955, p. 222).
It is a problem of cultural integration. But this critical situation also gives
rise to phenomena of resistance for which he establishes a double distinc-
tion: firstly, that between resistance to borrowing and resistance to lending,
i.e. resistance to borrowing or lending specific cultural items; and, secondly,
resistance to or antagonism toward the prospective lender or borrower.
Devereux considers that these phenomena of resistance to acculturation
form the very foundation of the process of antagonistic acculturation
which he defines as follows:
Antagonistic acculturation is the diffusion of the means segment of a complex of
traits belonging to the covert culture (or to the overt culture). We distinguish
between three types: (1) Defensive isolation; (2) The adoption of new means in
order to support existing ends; (3) Dissociative negative acculturation, or the evolv-
ing of cultural complexes deliberately at variance with, or the opposite of the cul-
ture of the out-group.

(1955, p. 228)
I think, in fact, that the resistances of anthropology to accepting the cul-
tural item, the universality of the Oedipus complex, may have found
expression notably in the adoption of new means aimed at supporting exist-
ing aims. In other words, the new means would be the Oedipus complex,
considered as a nuclear family complex, but its universality is rejected and
the existing aims would concern the defence and affirmation of the emerging
cultural relativism. In sum, in this situation of antagonistic acculturation

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 The dipus complex 999

experienced by anthropology, anthropologists would say: Yes, we accept this

Oedipus complex as a family complex in patriarchal societies exclusively, but
not in matrilineal societies where another type of nuclear family complex
exists.
Malinowski was the exemplary author of this acculturative phenomenon,
for this historical period. He created the nuclear family complex, a syn-
cretic product, by reinterpreting the Oedipus complex as being the family
complex of patriarchal societies. This manipulation of the Oedipus complex,
underpinned most probably by an unconscious fantasy, resonated with the
expectations, fantasies and ideas of the collective body of anthropologists.
Quite quickly, this family complex was to become a social formation,
bearing witness to its well-established assimilation. The new identity of
anthropologists was constructed and crystallized around this acculturative
phenomenon. Henceforth, it was based on fieldwork, on the rejection of
evolutionism, and on phenomena of acculturation to certain concepts,
notions and elements of psychoanalytic method that is, on their anthropo-
logical translation and manipulation.
As I have already said, it was with the work Totem and Taboo that the
traumatic dimension of the discovery and encounter with psychoanalysis
acquired its full value and meaning, thus justifying the manifestations of
resistance and antagonistic acculturation of the anthropological body.
From then on, it would also organize the history of their conflictual
relations. Now the impact of this irruption of psychoanalysis into the
socio-cultural body was all the more traumatic for anthropology in that it
occurred at a critical moment of its history, and thus one of great vulnera-
bility namely, at a time when evolutionism and its postulate of the unity
of the human mind was in decline and soon to be overtaken by the new
paradigm of cultural relativism.
However, this situation of acculturation also produced the creation of new
acculturative disciplines, including Roheims and Kardiners psychoanalytic
anthropology, Fromms analytical psychosociology, and Devereuxs comple-
mentary ethno-psychoanalysis and ethno-psychiatry, in particular.
Would their epistemological and methodological characteristics (objects,
methods, concepts, theoretical models and fieldwork practices) help us to
understand more clearly their very particular relations? Let us examine now
their points of divergence and convergence.

Some areas of divergence

The object of anthropology is culture and society that is, the many and
varied modes of organization and collective life, historically and geographi-
cally determined. Through this very rich diversity of socio-cultural and
historical forms, we can examine the essence of this order of collective life,
its principles and its rules of functioning, and then identify the fundamental
categories of culture in itself. Its dual status of collective exteriority and
individual interiority is one of its major characteristics. An exploration of
intercultural regularities will be required along with the different models of
culture created by man. To this end, a specific methodology has been

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1000 E. Smadja

developed and established which, as a result of exceptional and irreplaceable

fieldwork experience, has also mobilized procedures of abstraction, schemati-
zation and modelization. Among the concepts, notions and domains specific
to anthropology, apart from those of culture and society, some appear and
function as identity markers. This is the case, for instance, for the notions
of institution, custom, tradition, norm, ideology, acculturation, as well as
the domains of myths, rituals, cosmologies and religions, social organization,
systems of kinship, economy, politics and power, law, technologies, linguistic
facts and the artistic field. They are inherent to the collective life of
men and women, to their organization, their social relations, their produc-
tions and their history. If they involve and concern the life of each
individual, it will be as an active member of a society, participating in its
production and its reproduction. A man acquires the status of human being
by becoming a moral and social person, a cultured person, through the
double process of enculturation and socialization, of cultural introjection
and social incorporation, in my own terminology. On the other hand, we
will see that other concepts and notions, as well as other domains, are
shared with psychoanalysis, but their meanings and approaches are different.
This is true, in particular, for the symbolic and symbolization, representa-
tions, the prohibition on incest, and for beliefs, values and structures.
As for psychoanalysis, its main object is the unconscious, its processes
and productions, individual and collective. The setting and characteristics of
classical analysis, as well as the dream-object, represent the paradigmatic
conditions and royal road for the exploration of this specific object of
psychoanalysis, with which it identifies itself. These technical conditions thus
favour the construction of psychoanalytic findings, the observation of a
singular type of reality previously unexplored in the history of knowledge
namely, unconscious psychical reality, with its heterogeneity, its fundamental
conflictuality, its processes and contents, dreams, fantasies, symptoms, ideas
and affects, in particular. Consequently, the ethnographic method cannot
construct psychoanalytic findings, just as the psychoanalytic method cannot
elaborate ethnological findings. So this approach provides us with part of an
answer to the question of the socio-cultural existence of the Oedipus
complex: the latter is a psychoanalytic finding, pertaining to unconscious
psychic reality, and not an ethnological finding, observable in the field. It
derives from a process of interpretation, of translation, within the psychoan-
alytic theoretical frame of reference, of ethnographic material, conceived
notably as symbolic productions that is, as cultural productions of the
unconscious.
Some concepts and notions belong exclusively to the psychoanalytic theo-
retical corpus and vocabulary and, very early on in the history of this
debate, certain anthropologists found a number of them particularly appeal-
ing, for instance, the unconscious, the latent and the manifest, in the service
of a hermeneutic approach, repression and identification, while rejecting the
others, in particular, unconscious fantasy, infantile sexuality, the drive, and
the libido. Indeed, psychoanalytic methodology, along with certain concepts
and notions, was privileged by certain anthropologists, while their clinical
foundations were neglected or denied. Conversely, we have seen that

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psychoanalysts were above all interested in ethnographic material to the det-

riment of the concepts and theoretical dimension of anthropology.
Phenomena of acculturation thus seem to be just as selective between cul-
tures as between scientific disciplines!

Some areas of convergence

What we are concerned with here is two human sciences exploring mans
diverse modes of fabrication as well as his multiple representations and
figures.
Historically and traditionally, anthropologists have reproached psychoana-
lysts for reducing cultural difference to what is similar, and the richness of
symbolic productions to the poverty of the unconscious psychical contents
and processes. Anzieu (1970) responded by arguing that: Owing to their
unconscious, men all feel similar. The unconscious, and more particularly
the oedipal dilemma, are the basis of human identity and community
(pp. 1367). Consequently, the non-recognition of the universality of the
unconscious and of the Oedipus complex would lead to the denial of the
existence of a human identity and community in other words, of what
constitutes the essence of the human being and his subjectivity.
In my view the distinction universality relativity, which has been so
important in this conflictual history, has lost its heuristic power and value.
Indeed, it is very likely that it served ideological and identity-related inter-
ests, but not scientific interests. If we refer to biology, the distinction would
be obsolete immediately because universality and diversity coexist and are
inherent to the very essence of life. Through this common object, the human
being and his multiple psychical, cultural and historical expressions, psycho-
analysis and anthropology will of course observe the universal and the
singular in every finding. Everything will depend on the level and mode of
observation, and thus on the type of construction of the object observed, as
well as on the analytical perspective and theoretical model orientating the
interpretation. It is possible to separate the universal from the singular, and
to attempt to understand the processes of differentiation and singulariza-
tion. All this relates to the richness of life in which psychic reality partici-
pates just as much as socio-cultural and historical reality.
Here the biological analogy assumes its full meaning and efficacy.
I think that, even though the debate between psychoanalysis and anthro-
pology has enriched us with regard to the mutual and inextricable relations
between ideological, institutional and scientific interests as well as between
scientific and identity-related issues, on the other hand, it has considerably
impoverished, through multiple operations of scotomization, splitting, dis-
tortion, evasion and repression, the unified knowledge of man, which is the
object of anthropology in the primordial and full sense of the term. The
knowledge of the human sciences has really suffered as a consequence.
My hypothesis is that the discovery of the unconscious by Freud, which
constituted a major epistemological revolution in the history of the sciences,
possesses a power of deflagration which still continues to manifest its
effects in the different fields of human knowledge. Even today, we have still

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1002 E. Smadja

not evaluated all its implications. And it is the unconscious that constitutes
this fundamental and principal unifying factor in the knowledge of the
human sciences, as Freud saw very early on, and as Roheim and Devereux
clearly stated subsequently. Apart from the discovery of the unconscious
and its universality, it was also discovered at the same time with Freud
and his contributions on applied psychoanalysis, among which the trau-
matic Totem and Taboo that the unconscious is individual and collective,
being at once inside and outside, and belongs to both psychic and socio-
cultural reality. However, the organization and the individual and collective
formations are independent. Thus it was through the symbolic function that
Lvi-Strauss studied the organization and collective manifestations of
unconscious processes, to the point of defining culture as an ensemble of
symbolic systems.
So I consider that the conflict that is crystallized by the problem of the uni-
versality of the Oedipus complex is the result of a displacement. In fact, it
expresses indirectly the conflict engendered by the discovery of the universality
of the unconscious and its two poles, individual and collective, intrapsychic and
socio-cultural. As long as it remained intrapsychic, its discovery was tolerable,
under certain conditions, but nonetheless unassimilable. However, on account
of its extra-territorial intrusion, Totem and Taboo triggered the reactional
hostility of anthropologists, inherent to this very intrusion into their own field
but this hostility, taking on new meaning retroactively [aprs coup], also
expressed and, above all, showed the violence of the rejection of this discovery
of the unconscious, that has been little understood right up to the present day.
What can be said about concepts and their nature?
Psychoanalysis shares with the socio-anthropological disciplines the meta-
phorical nature of their own concepts. The common concepts seem to me to
be those of meaning and signification, but also representation, the symbolic
order and symbolization. However, anthropologists are interested in and
explore their collective dimension whereas psychoanalysts concern
themselves with their psychic dimension. Their respective definition will be
determined by their reference to theoretical models, in an attempt to
account for an empirical reality and specific processes.
Besides this, another link should be mentioned between our two specific
objects, unconscious and culture: both have a double status, inside and out-
side, intrapsychic and socio-cultural. Like the unconscious, culture is also an
intrapsychic reality, present in each individual, and thus in each member of
a given society, through the psychical agencies of the ego and superego
(Freudian). This intraspychic and bodily experience, the product of pro-
cesses of enculturation or cultural introjection, is a condition for the
humanization and socialization of every human being.
This line of thinking can be developed, moreover, within the framework
of a notion that would seem to be common to and exploitable by both our
disciplines. I am referring to cultural work or the work of culture, depending
on the translations, introduced by Freud but never defined. In a recent
contribution (Smadja, 2009), I have attempted to define and develop this
original notion, within an exclusive Freudian perspective.

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Just as the unconscious becomes a unifying object of the human sciences,

linking anthropology and psychoanalysis, culture becomes another common
object, to be shared scientifically. Consequently, through their first com-
mon object, man, these two disciplines share, in fact, two major attributes of
his humanity: the unconscious and culture, the Oedipus complex being an
operator of binding; and the notion of cultural work might then acquire the
status of concept accounting for this new epistemological reality.
It should be pointed out that anthropologists and psychoanalysts share a
similar attitude to their way of viewing empirical reality and the theoretical
corpus of their interlocutors. In fact, both are inclined to reduce the richness
and complexity of their respective fields, psychical reality and historical and
socio-cultural reality. Likewise, they have insufficient knowledge of
their respective concepts and theoretical models as well as of the history
of their respective disciplines. These characteristics help us to understand, at
least partially, certain misunderstandings along with the multiple reciprocal
distortions and manipulations. All of which raises the major question of
establishing favourable conditions for a fruitful scientific collaboration
between these two sciences.
It is worth recalling, with Devereux and his remarkable book, From Anxi-
ety to Method in the Behavioural Sciences (Devereux, 1967), the anxiety
engendered by material, leading to the mobilization of defence mechanisms
and the countertransferential situation experienced by the ethnologist in his
field, in his relations to the chosen group and to his or its informers, and by
the analyst in the clinico-analytic couple that he forms with his patient. The
considerations developed by Devereux are of considerable importance for
the exploration and intelligibility of the areas of convergence between our
two human sciences.
The investigator, in the situation of observation, is inevitably exposed to
material which triggers, or can trigger anxiety, thus mobilizing mechanisms
of defence of different kinds in him, which are a source of countertransfer-
ential distortion of this very material.
In fact, featuring among the sources of distortions that the investigator
imposes on observation are the consigning and interpretation of his mate-
rial, except, obviously, for the investigators personality, the cultural models
to which he belongs, his social roots including the influence of his ethnic
and cultural status, his social class, and the influence of ideology. In the vast
field of protective measures against anxiety, Devereux mentions, notably,
professional defences such as methodological positions and technical pro-
cedures.
One of the major sources of anxiety stems from identificatory movements
with the other, and with others, human beings such as the ethnologist and
the psychoanalyst, and resonances with certain aspects of the unconscious
psychic life of these investigators. Indirect self-observation, the capacity to
be at one and the same time in the position of subject and object of obser-
vation are common to both our disciplines. Thus a defensive measure of a
methodological or ideological kind consists in establishing a certain protec-
tive distance by seeking to exaggerate the difference between oneself and
others, in looking for what is unique and special. According to Devereux,

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1004 E. Smadja

this leads to denying the psychical unity of humanity and to attributing a

special psychology to each ethnic group. He notes that this tendency is
quite marked among ethnologists hostile to psychoanalysis, who have the
tendency to ignore the latent traits which counterbalance the extreme mani-
fest cultural traits. This is the case for cultural relativism, he thinks, which
approaches others and their practices as dehumanized objects of observa-
tion. Consequently, the real aim, albeit unrecognized and unconscious, of
these distancing and objectifying measures is the interruption of the major
dialogue of the unconscious.
Finally, it should be noted that this history is also marked by the singular
evolution of these two bodies of knowledge. Freudian psychoanalysis has
evolved, other schools of thought have appeared, and the same is true of
anthropology. Some psychoanalysts, abandoning or distorting certain Freud-
ian concepts, have adhered to sociological primacy and cultural relativism.
Some anthropologists have adopted Freudian concepts while others have
been attracted by Jungian theses, for example.

By way of conclusion
This conflictual history and the few elements of intelligibility that I have
been able to provide suggest to me that the determinants and issues at stake
are more of an identity-related and ideological order than scientific. Fur-
thermore, they lead us to consider that, in the final analysis, psychoanalysis
and anthropology, both human sciences, share two common objects, two
interdependent components and attributes of humanity, the unconscious
and culture. Consequently, they should be able to offer us additional under-
standing of the unity, diversity and complexity of this human reality.
We have seen that the conflict that is crystallized by the problem of the
universality of the Oedipus complex, an object of multiple interpretations
and manipulations, was the product of a displacement. In fact, it expresses
indirectly the conflict engendered by the discovery of the universality of the
unconscious and of its two poles, individual and collective, intrapsychic and
socio-cultural. Furthermore, we have discovered that it plays a role of bind-
ing between the unconscious and culture, which is at the foundation both of
identity and of the human community and subjectivity.
Moreover, we have noted that all the acculturative disciplines produced
during the course of this conflictual history have the virtue of seeking to
articulate two bodies of knowledge, which inevitably entails problems of a
methodological and conceptual order, concerning theoretical references and
the task of delimiting a precise field. However, psychoanalytic references dif-
fer. What is more, how are we to identify, in the vast social, cultural and
historical field, the unconscious productions and processes at work? How
are we to analyse the processes of transformation and the different stages,
ranging from psychical representations to cultural, symbolic representations?
As Anzieu pointed out, it is indispensable to differentiate between the two
types of organization of the processes and formations of the unconscious,
individual and collective. How are we to differentiate between what pertains,
in a socio-cultural finding, to the unconscious determinism of other

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 The dipus complex 1005

determinisms of a social, political, economic, ideological and historical

order, for example? This means we have to be particularly circumspect.
We may also wonder about the effects of socio-cultural and historical real-
ity on the psyche and on the course of the lives of individuals, members of
a given society, notably through religions and myths. A psychoanalytic
anthropology should also explore this alternative direction.
In spite of the interest of these multiple approaches, inevitably comprising
their own limits and insufficiencies, I am not convinced it is necessary to
create a psychoanalytic anthropology, regardless of its psychoanalytic refer-
ences and the limits of its field. I think that a sound consideration of the
epistemological foundations of psychoanalysis, legitimizing its eventual
exploration of the socio-cultural field, must be articulated with an anthro-
pology that fully recognizes the existence of the unconscious, its universality,
its processes and productions, both individual and collective. By the same
token, recognition from psychoanalysis and anthropology of the intrapsychic
inscription of culture is fundamental. I consider that a psychoanalytic
anthropology, justifying its existence by a specific approach, thus necessarily
deeper, to an aspect of human reality, would participate in the generalized
movement of fragmenting knowledge with the attendant conflictual scientific
and identity-related implications.
All this has convinced me of the need to envisage the elaboration of prin-
ciples of collaboration rather than the creation of a discipline or subdisci-
pline, an acculturative product of a defensive nature in this historical
context full of turbulence. A genuinely scientific dialogue would thus
become possible, based on mutual authentic interests and deep knowledge.
It would at last be freed, at least, from the parasitic issues of identity and
ideology, as well as the grip of certain beliefs of a projective nature.

Translations of summary
Der Odipuskomplex, Kristallisator einer Psychoanalyse-Anthropologie-Debatte. Die Art und
Weise, in der Anthropologen insbesondere den dipuskomplex verstehen, ist ein gutes Beispiel dafr, wie
sie die Psychoanalyse im Allgemeinen erfassen. Tatschlich hat sich eine Reihe von Reaktionen herauskri-
stallisiert, die von Ignoranz, Missverstndnissen, Verzerrung und Ausblendung gekennzeichnet sind und
die gleichzeitig unter den Anthropologen einen Argwohn gegenber der Psychoanalyse hervorgerufen
haben. Das legen die Vorurteile der verschiedenen Denkschulen und entsprechenden Autoren nahe. Und
diese Reaktionen gab es von den allerersten Kontakten bis heute. In welcher Weise hat die Psychoanalyse
dazu beigetragen und wie hat sie ihrerseits die Anthropologie dargestellt?
Absicht dieses Artikels ist, die erkenntnistheoretischen und historischen Bedingungen des Aufkommens
dieser Debatte aufzudecken und diese dann chronologisch bis in die 1950er und 1960er Jahre zu
verfolgen. Um ein klareres Bild zu bekommen, werden dabei drei wichtige Kulturbereiche differenziert
Grobritannien, die USA und Frankreich. Davon ausgehend werden wir versuchen, unsere Untersuchung
zu diversifizieren und einige Deutungshypothesen zu formulieren.
Wir gehen insbesondere davon aus, dass ein traumatisches Ereignis die Geschichte der Beziehung die-
ser zwei Disziplinen ausgelst und geformt und damit eine Situation der kulturellen Anpassung mit
zahlreichen Auswirkungen herbeigefhrt hat, wenn wir diese Disziplinen als zwei Kulturen bezeichnen,
die in Kontakt miteinander kommen: Worum es hier geht, ist Freuds Arbeit Totem und Tabu, dem
ersten wichtigen psychoanalytischen Denkansatz in Richtung der Deutung ethnographischer Tatsa-
chen, der ihn dazu brachte, die Universalitt des dipuskomplexes auf die Wurzeln der frhesten
sozialen Institutionen zu bertragen und mit der er die Prsenz unbewusster Prozesse in ihrer Entste-
hung aufgezeigt hat.

Copyright 2011 Institute of Psychoanalysis Int J Psychoanal (2011) 92

1006 E. Smadja
El complejo de Edipo, cristalizador del debate psicoanalisis antropologa. La manera en la que
los antroplogos entienden el complejo de Edipo en particular es un buen ejemplo de cmo entienden el
psicoanlisis en general. En efecto, aqul ha cristalizado un conjunto de reacciones marcadas por la igno-
rancia, el malentendido, la distorsin y el cribado. A la vez, ha provocado la sospecha de los antroplo-
gos respecto del psicoanlisis, segn los preconceptos de las distintas escuelas y los diferentes autores
implicados, y esto ha sido as
desde los primeros contactos hasta el presente. De qu manera contribuy-
eron a ello los psicoanalistas, y qu representacin elaboraron, a su vez, de la antropolog
a? El objetivo
de este trabajo es poner en evidencia las condiciones epistemolgicas e histricas de la emergencia de este
debate y, a continuacin, desarrollarlo siguiendo su cronolog
a hasta los aos 50 y 60. Diferenciaremos
tres reas culturales principales Gran Bretaa, Estados Unidos y Francia para obtener una imagen
ms clara. De ah
en ms, trataremos de diversificar nuestra investigacin y formular algunas hiptesis
interpretativas.
En particular, creemos que un hecho traumtico puede haber inaugurado y organizado la historia de la
relacin entre las dos disciplinas, produciendo una situacin que puede considerarse como de acu-
lturacin con impactos mltiples si equiparamos estas disciplinas con dos culturas que entran en con-
tacto. Lo que est en juego aqu
es Ttem y tab, donde Freud realiza su primer abordaje psicoanal
tico
importante respecto de la interpretacin de hechos etnogrficos. Dicho abordaje lo lleva a trasplantar la
universalidad del complejo de Edipo a la ra
z misma de las primeras instituciones sociales, y a identificar
la presencia de procesos inconscientes en la gnesis de stas.

Le complexe ddipe, cristallisateur du debat psychanalyse anthropologie. La faon dont les

anthropologues comprennent le complexe ddipe en particulier offre un bon exemple de la faon dont
ils comprennent aussi la psychanalyse en gnral. En effet, le complexe ddipe a cristallis tout un
ensemble de ractions marques au sceau de lignorance, du malentendu, de la dformation et a provoqu
en mme temps parmi les anthropologues une raction de mfiance  lgard de la psychanalyse, suivant
les prjugs des diffrents auteurs et coles de pense et ce, depuis les tous premiers contacts jusqu
aujourdhui. De quelle faon les psychanalystes ont-ils contribu  cet tat de choses et quelle reprsenta-
tion, en retour, ont-ils forge de lanthropologie? Lauteur de cet article dcrit les conditions pistmolog-
iques et historiques qui ont prsid  linstauration de ce dbat et tudie son dveloppement
chronologique jusque dans les annes cinquante et soixante, tout en diffrenciant, pour clairer le tab-
leau, trois zones culturelles majeures, la Grande-Bretagne, les Etats-Unis et la France. A partir de l,
lauteur poursuit son investigation dans dautres directions et formule quelques hypothses interprta-
tives.
Il suggre notamment lide quun vnement traumatique ait pu initier et organiser lhistoire de la rela-
tion entre ces deux disciplines, produisant une situation dacculturation aux multiples effets qui serait
comparable  la mise en contact de deux cultures: ce dont il sagit ici cest de Totem et tabou, uvre o
Freud entreprend pour la premire fois dappliquer la mthode psychanalytique  linterprtation de faits
ethnographiques, ce qui lamne  transplanter luniversalit du complexe ddipe en lenracinant dans
les premires institutions sociales et  mettre en vidence la participation de processus inconscients dans
leur gense.

Il Complesso Edipico. Il modo in cui gli antropologi interpretano il ocncetto di complesso edipico, 
un buon esempio di come interpretino la psicoanalisi nel suo insieme. Questa concezione ha cristallizzato
una serie di reazioni caratterizzate da ignoranza, fraintendimenti, distorsioni e letture parziali. Allo stesso
tempo ha provocato un clima di sospetto fra gli antropologi rispetto alla psicoanalisi, che variano a
seconda dei preconcetti delle varie scuole di pensiero. Questa situazione risale agli inizi dellincontro fra
le due discipline. In che modo gli psicoanalisti hanno contribuito a questa situazione e quale rappresent-
azione dellantropologia hanno a loro volta elaborato? Scopo di questo lavoro  quello di esporre le con-
dizioni epistemologiche e storiche dellemergenza di questo dibattito e di analizzarlo sia seguendo criteri
cronologici fino agli anni 50 e 60, sia differenziando contemporaneamente, per maggiore chiarezza, tre
aree culturali predominanti: Gran Bretagna, Stati Uniti e Francia. Tentiamo poi di allargare la nostra
ricerca e di formulare alcune ipotesi interpretative.
In particolare,  nostra convinzione che un evento traumatico possa aver dato inizio e organizzato la
storia del rapporto fra le due discipline, producendo un incontro fra i due campi di conoscenza ad
effetto multiplo, sempre che questi due campi possano essere definiti come due culture. Il testo chi-
ave, qui,  Totem e Tab in cui Freud effettua la sua prima maggiore interpretazione psicoanalitica
di fatti etnografici, che lo porta a trasporre luniversalit del complesso edipico alle radici stesse delle
prime forme di organizzazione sociale e a individuare la presenza di processi inconsci nella genesi di
tali organizzazioni.

Int J Psychoanal (2011) 92 Copyright 2011 Institute of Psychoanalysis

 The dipus complex 1007

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