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The Laius complex: From myth to psychoanalysis

Iris Levy
Published online: 02 Aug 2011.

To cite this article: Iris Levy (2011) The Laius complex: From myth to psychoanalysis, International Forum of
Psychoanalysis, 20:4, 222-228, DOI: 10.1080/0803706X.2011.597428

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The Laius complex: From myth to psychoanalysis

IRIS LEVY

Abstract
The ‘‘Laius complex,’’ named after Oedipus’ filicidal and pederastic father, refers to the murderous and incestuous wishes of
a parent toward a child. In its broader meaning, the Laius complex also includes any wish on the part of one in authority to
Downloaded by [University of Liverpool] at 13:11 30 December 2014

symbolically murder or diminish a subordinate. Although the stories from myth and religion, as well as our own personal
experiences and clinical observations, give us ample evidence of parental aggression and hostility, the Laius complex has
been largely ignored in the psychoanalytic literature. This paper will explore why this has been so, and argues that the Laius
complex does deserve more recognition than it has hitherto been given. The author begins with Freud and his
understanding of Oedipus/Laius issues. Next, the contributions of George Devereux, Martin Bergmann, and others are
discussed with an emphasis on the appearance of the Laius motif in myth and religion. Finally, the author discusses the
implication of the Laius complex for psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice.

Key words: Laius complex, Oedipus complex, parricide, filicide, myth, religion

We have all heard of King Laius’ famous son,
Oedipus, and his equally famous ‘‘Oedipus com-
plex,’’ but of Laius himself, and his corresponding
complex, we have heard very little. For more than
two thousand years, the tragic fate of Oedipus has
filled us with horror and fascination. Oedipus has
become emblematic for two of the most unspeakable
crimes for civilized human beings: patricide and
incest. That Freud in 1900 would choose this horrific
figure to characterize the wishes of every Oedipal
child was both brilliant and breathtaking in its
audacity. But for psychoanalysts practicing more
than one hundred years after Freud’s bold discovery,
both myth and complex have lost some of their power
to shock. A small group of subsequent psychoanalytic
authors have attempted to reanimate the myth by
shifting the illumination from Oedipus, the son, to
Laius, the father, and the complicated dialectic
between the childhood and adult complexes.
The Laius complex, thus-named after Oedipus’
filicidal father, refers to the murderous and incestuous
wishes of the parent toward the child. In its broader
meaning, the Laius complex also includes the compli-
cated and ambivalent attitudes any person who repre-
sents parental authority may take toward a
‘‘subordinate,’’ such as in the relations between mas-
ter/apprentice, teacher/student, and even analyst/ana-
lysand. In Sophocles’ play, Laius, in fear of the oracle’s
prophecy that he will be destroyed by his son, orders
the infant Oedipus to be abandoned on a mountainside
to die. The Laius complex therefore seems to reverse
the childhood Oedipal situation, with the child or
subordinate now perceived as the dangerous and
murderous rival who must be defended against.
The term ‘‘Laius complex’’ was first introduced
into the literature by George Devereux, in his 1953
paper ‘‘Why Oedipus killed Laius.’’ Devereux, an
anthropologist and psychoanalyst, noted ‘‘the ten-
dency in psychoanalytic theory to pay exceedingly
little attention to the Laius complex,’’ especially as
regards its sadistic and murderous aspects. He
believed that this blind spot proved that the Laius
complex was even more ‘‘egodystonic and culturally
objectionable’’ than the Oedipus complex, and was
due to the adult’s need to absolve themselves of their
own responsibility for stimulating the child’s murder-
ous and incestuous wishes (Devereux, 1953, p. 132).
In the 58 years since Devereux wrote his paper, a
small but highly provocative body of literature has
emerged on this controversial topic. The theme that
runs throughout this literature is that while the
recognition of the Laius complex may be culturally

Correspondence: Iris Levy, 60 East 8th Street (#8P), New York, NY 10003, USA. Tel: 1 212-254-2206. E-mail: ILEVYNYC@aol.com

(Received 6 June 2011; accepted 9 June 2011)

ISSN 0803-706X print/ISSN 1651-2324 online # 2011 The International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2011.597428

dystonic, sadism toward children is culturally syn-
tonic. Throughout the history of the human species,
children have been victims of ritual sacrifice, infan-
ticide, sexual abuse, corporeal punishment, aban-
donment, neglect, slavery, and genital mutilations, to
name just a few of the most extreme examples.
History and literature also abound with cases of
parental aggression toward children, even in Freud’s
own time. For example, Queen Victoria and the
Emperor Franz Joseph both infantilized their heirs
apparent and refused to give way to the next
generation. From the literary world, Dostoyevsky’s
great novels incorporate the themes of child abuse,
neglect, and abandonment, which runs as a sinister
undercurrent to the more obvious themes of parri-
cide. And in Kafka’s disturbing ‘‘Letter to his father’’
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we see the crippling effect of a Laius-driven father
upon the vulnerable sensibilities of one of the great-
est writers of modernity.
Filicide has also been kept alive in various cultural
institutions. Martin Bergmann, in his fascinating
book, In the shadow of Moloch (1992), has traced the
theme of child sacrifice in the history of Western
religion, while the Rascovskys (1968/1988, 1972)
have emphasized the Laius motif in the phenomena
of war, where the old send the young to die. In all
these cases, children have been sacrificed on the
alters of their parents’ political, religious or self-
serving Gods. But even the most loving and protec-
tive of parents can have what J.M. Ross calls a ‘‘heart
of darkness,’’ an unrealized potential in fact or
fantasy for doing violence to children (Ross, 1982/
1988, p. 287). The conclusion that many of these
authors reach is that filicide, in one form another,
may well be a universal wish (Bloch, 1985; Calef,
1968; Ross, 1982/1988, 1984/1988).
Although historical reality, common experience, as
well as the legends from religion and myth have all
given ample evidence of parental aggression, once
Freud established the centrality of the Oedipus
complex, few analysts paid attention to the corre-
sponding wishes of the parent (Bergmann, 1992).
Why has the Laius complex been neglected in the
psychoanalytic literature? What contributions does it
make to our understanding of theory, in particular the
Oedipus complex? In order to explore these questions
in greater depth, I will turn first to Freud and his
understanding of Oedipus/Laius issues. Second, I will
review the contributions of Devereux and Bergmann,
and their highlighting of the Laius complex in myth
and religion. Finally, I will discuss the implications of
the Laius complex for psychoanalytic theory and
clinical practice. For the purposes of this paper, I
will confine my remarks about the Laius complex to
the relationship between father and son, with special
emphasis on the aggressive dimension. The Jocasta
The Laius complex 223
complex, which also clearly requires consideration,
will be postponed for a later occasion.
Freud’s view of the Oedipus complex
Freud’s brilliant discovery of the Oedipus complex
evolved over several decades, and was made possible
by a combination of factors, most notably his work
with hysterics, the abandonment of the seduction
theory, his own self-analysis, and his radical reading
of the Oedipus myth.
During his pioneering work with hysterics in the
late 1800s, Freud believed that adult neurosis was
caused by trauma, namely the sexual seduction of
the patient in childhood by an adult. Freud’s
seduction theory was eventually replaced by the
idea that conflict over unconscious childhood wishes
and fantasies, rather than trauma alone, were
the etiological factors responsible for neurosis. The
abandonment of the seduction theory shifted the
theoretical ground from a psychology of experience
to a psychology of meaning. This paradigmatic shift
also laid the ground work for the theory of infantile
sexuality, and in particular the Oedipus complex.
Freud viewed the Oedipus complex as the ‘‘nucle-
ar complex of the neuroses’’ and ‘‘peak of infantile
sexuality’’ (Freud, 1905, p. 226). No matter how
loving, benign, and nonseductive the parent is in
reality, the child will inevitably develop incestuous
fantasies toward the parent of the opposite sex, and
murderous wishes toward the parent of the same sex.
The child’s castration anxiety and fears of retaliation
were seen as projection of their own aggression, and
likewise the parents’ counterwishes of murder,
castration, and incest were largely dismissed by
Freud, except as part of the child’s fantasy. Although
Freud first read Oedipus Rex when he was 16 years
old, it was not until his immersion in his own self-
analysis that he began to suspect that the story of
Oedipus had a universal application. In 1897, one
year after the death of his father, Freud wrote to his
close friend and confidante, Wilhelm Fliess, about
his tentative discovery of the Oedipus complex:
I have found love of the mother and jealousy of the father
in my own case too, and now believe it to be a general
phenomenon of early childhood . . . If that is the case, the
gripping power of Oedipus Rex . . . becomes intelligible.
Every member of the audience was once such a budding
Oedipus in fantasy and this dream-fulfillment played out
in reality causes everyone to recoil in horror. (Freud,
1897/1954, pp. 223
224)
Freud read the Oedipus myth in a radical new way.
No one before had interpreted the play as an
expression of universal childhood wishes, which
 224 I. Levy
explains its resonance with us throughout the gen-
erations. But if every child is a ‘‘budding Oedipus,’’
is not every father a fully formed Laius?
Freud and the Laius complex
A number of authors have found it striking that
Freud obscured Laius’ part in his reading of Oedipus
Rex, and that, like Oedipus, he blinded himself to the
guilt that Laius shared in the shaping of the familial
tragedy. Is it possible that Freud, who introduced the
concept of the complemental series, the interaction
of constitution and environment in shaping a child’s
development, could have been totally unaware of the
Laius complex? In fact, in an interesting addendum
to The interpretation of dreams (1900), Freud hints at
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his own Laius issues in a dream that his son had been
wounded at the front during World War I. Freud
interpreted his dream as a disguised death wish
toward his son and wrote that, at its deepest level,
the dream revealed ‘‘the envy which is felt for the
young by those who have grown old, but which they
believe they have completely stifled’’ (Freud, 1900,
p. 560). Despite this self-discovery, the idea of the
Laius complex never emerged as a theoretical con-
struct comparable to the Oedipus complex.
Explanations for Freud’s omission revolve around
several issues: cultural factors, personal conflicts, his
overidentification with the character of Oedipus, and
ideological issues. Devereux suggests, in regards to
cultural factors, that Freud’s omission may be rooted
in the ‘‘authoritarian atmosphere characteristic of
19th century family life,’’ which may partially explain
the need to ignore parental attitudes and place all the
‘‘blame’’ on the child (Devereux, 1953, p. 132). As
regards personal conflicts, Freud’s biographers have
frequently noted his idealization of his own father,
and his concomitant difficulties with his symbolic
sons, starting with Jung.
In addition, Freud had a strong positive identifica-
tion with Oedipus. One important biographical detail
provided by Ernest Jones is revealing (Jones, 1953).
As a young medical student, Freud had the fantasy
that a bust of his would eventually grace the university
courtyard bearing an inscription from Oedipus Rex:
‘‘who knew the famous riddles and was a man most
mighty.’’ An uncanny intuition led a group of his
adherents to present him with a medallion bearing the
very same inscription on his fiftieth birthday.
Finally, in respect to ideological issues, once
Freud abandoned the seduction theory, the central-
ity of the Oedipus complex was firmly established.
Bergmann believes that for Freud to have then
included the Laius complex would have required
too great a shift from the intrapsychic world of the
child toward a greater emphasis on object relations
(Bergmann, 1992, p. 296). In my opinion, Freud
never ignored the part that environment played in
shaping the drives. But Freud, the intellectual
conquistador, was interested in emphasizing what
was new
the blind drives
and during his period of
scientific discovery, this was his most novel and
profound contribution.
In any case, it was Freud who first pointed us in
the direction of the Oedipus myth to help elucidate
one essential aspect of the human condition: the
Oedipus complex. But Freud focused on only one
character in this complicated legend: Oedipus, the
son. Devereux, Bergmann, and subsequent psycho-
analytic authors have gone back to the mythic and
religious sources to help us gain a deeper insight into
Laius, the father, and the complicated relationship
between the two. What they have essentially done is
to recontextualize Oedipus and examine his patri-
cidal and incestuous dilemmas within the dialectical
relationship with his filicidal and pederastic father.
Devereux’s thesis of the Laius complex
Devereux’s thesis on the Laius complex took place
within a careful reading of Oedipus Rex and its
variations in Greek myth and legend, particularly
as regards the early history of Laius. The interge-
nerational hostility between father and son had a
long pre-history that antedated Sophocles’ play.
Both Oedipus and Laius were descendants of the
ill-fated house of Cadmus, a family whose history
and subsequent legacy included infanticide, incest,
cannibalism, castration, fratricide, and suicide.
Laius, like Oedipus, was subjected to abandonment
and abuse as a child. His own father had died when
he was but a year old, and he was forced to wander in
exile after his uncle had usurped the throne. The
abandoned infant Laius enters adulthood with a
violent and impulsive character. According to some
versions of the legend, Laius was guilty of crimes
against two son figures: not only the twice-attempted
murder of his own son, Oedipus, but also the
abduction and rape of Chrysippus, the son of a
neighboring ruler. Devereux maintains that the
subsequent murder of Laius by Oedipus was there-
fore not only unconsciously motivated by the normal
Oedipal rivalry for the mother, but also ‘‘stimulated’’
and even ‘‘induced’’ by the brutal behavior of his
father (Devereux, 1953, p. 135). Devereux’s central
thesis then is that a parent’s Laius complex may
antedate the child’s Oedipus complex and that, in any
event, the father’s hostility toward a son may be
largely responsible for creating the child’s own
murderous and incestuous wishes.
Devereux’s paper introduced an important ques-
tion for psychoanalytic theory: does the Oedipus

complex appear as a consequence of the child’s
reaction to the parent’s filicidal and pederastic
wishes, or is the Oedipus complex to a greater extent
a biologically determined and spontaneously occur-
ring phase of development, regardless of the parents’
wishes? In other words, which comes first, the
Oedipus complex or the Laius complex? Before
turning to this debate, I will first review another
perspective on the Laius theme presented by Martin
Bergmann.
The Laius complex in Western religion
Bergmann in his fascinating, but surprisingly under-
read book, In the shadow of Moloch, explores the
Laius motif in the development of Western religion.
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He suggests that the history of Judaism and Chris-
tianity reflects an attempt to renounce the practice of
child sacrifice. This struggle, projected onto the
deity, attests to the conflict between love and hatred
for the child.
The practice of child sacrifice was common in the
rituals of many pagan religions. These rituals were
rooted in the primary process belief that child
sacrifice was necessary to appease a wrathful God,
and thus insure longevity and prosperity. The pagan
god Moloch is the prototype of this kind of deity. In
Moloch’s temple, children were placed in the arms of
a statue representing the God and allowed to fall into
a roaring furnace below (Bergmann, 1992, p. 80).
Bergmann speculates that Moloch may have been
the predecessor of the Hebrew God Yhwh, although
the Jewish religion would later condemn Moloch as
an abomination.
In many of the Greek myths too, there was no
attempt to disguise the hostility between father and
child. Uranus condemns his sons to the depths of the
ocean, but Cronus, the youngest, later castrates him.
Cronos himself subsequently swallows his children,
except Zeus, who later leads a rebellion against his
father. Infanticide and parricide follow each other in
an unending cycle. Because the Greeks portrayed
their Gods as selfish, rivalrous, and aggressive, they
too were never successful in creating the image of a
loving God.
The development of the Judeo-Christian religious
tradition, on the other hand, represented a signifi-
cant attempt to modify the image of a murderous
father/God, thereby reflecting the collective super-
ego’s condemnation of child sacrifice. The origin of
the holy days in both religions attests to this attempt.
The Jewish New Year celebrates the covenant with
God and His repudiation of child sacrifice. God
reverses the command given to Abraham to sacrifice
his son Isaac, and circumcision, or the sacrifice of
The Laius complex 225
the foreskin, later becomes the substitute for the
whole child.
In Christianity, the idea of filicide and the
suspended sacrifice of Isaac re-emerge from repres-
sion in the completed sacrifice of Christ. Bergmann
recalls a revealing anecdote from his analysis with a
gentile patient. The patient discovers that he prefers
a Jewish analyst to a gentile one because the Jewish
analyst would only demand his foreskin, while the
gentile analyst might crucify him (Bergmann, 1992,
p. 101). In God’s sacrifice of his son Jesus, the idea
of intergenerational hostility is reintroduced. How-
ever, by insisting that all future sacrifices will be
unnecessary, since Jesus has already atoned for our
sins, the father’s hostility is denied. The Eucharist,
the consumption of the body and blood of Christ,
combines the theme of filicide with earlier canniba-
listic impulses. The Jewish religion’s prohibition
against eating meat and milk together (‘‘thou shalt
not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk’’) was on the
other hand a reaction formation against cannibalism
and infanticide.
Bergmann suggests that, in place of actual child
sacrifice and the image of a murderous God, total
submission to an idealized father/God became the
ego ideal for both religions. In Judaism, the claim of
a loving God was affirmed in the explanation that the
sacrifice of Isaac was not really desired by God, but
only used to test Abraham’s loyalty. In Christianity,
the crucifixion is rationalized as an act of love
(Bergmann, 1988). Bergmann concludes that, de-
spite this gradual transformation of the image of
God, the unconscious theme of filicide, namely the
Laius complex, runs as an undercurrent in the
history of both religions. Therefore, neither religion
has been wholly successful in creating the image of a
totally loving God. This echo from our collective
past, he believes, is what makes the story of Isaac and
Christ appear as frightening in the unconscious of
every Oedipal child (Bergmann, 1992).
Although Bergmann makes an interesting and
convincing argument for the prominence of Laius
themes in religion, he takes a more equivocal
position as regards its place in psychoanalytic theory.
Unlike Devereux, Bergmann does not believe that
the Oedipus complex is primarily a response to the
parents’ Laius complex. He seems to remain faithful
to the idea of the centrality of the Oedipus complex,
but does add that both complexes are ‘‘interwoven as
parts of the human condition’’ (Bergmann, 1992,
p. 314).
Theoretical debate
The question implicitly raised by Devereux and
Bergmann reflects a debate already central to
 226 I. Levy
psychoanalysis: whether intrapsychic, instinctual
factors or interaction between parent and child
should be given more weight in our understanding
of the Oedipus complex.
At one end of the spectrum, we have the orthodox
classical position typified by someone like Charles
Brenner. Brenner maintains that the concept of the
‘‘bad’’ father in religion, myth, and fairy tales is
merely a defense against Oedipal wishes, particularly
parricide. So, ‘‘it is not my unconscious wishes which
make me want to kill my father, but it is a
consequence of his bad behavior
he made me do
it, I had no choice.’’ And in the case of Oedipus, it
was all unintentional anyway, a terrible accident
(Brenner, 1982, p. 236). In this view, the mind of the
child is primary, and an emphasis on the real
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qualities of the parent is seen as a defense against
parricide.
At the other end of the spectrum, we have
theorists such Devereux, Ross, and the Rasovskys
who emphasize that a child’s parricidal wishes are in
large part a result of the filicidal wishes of the parent.
They maintain that the Oedipus complex does not
arise in its full murderous form unless the child has
first been the object of some variant of parental
abuse. In their view, the wishes and actions of the
parents are central, and the focus on the child’s
‘‘dark intentions’’ is a defense against filicide.
Somewhere there is a middle ground. Analysts like
Bergmann (1974, 1988), Rangel (1955, 1972),
Loewald (1979), and Fenichel (1945) all have
insisted that the interpersonal and the intrapsychic
continually interact and affect each other. It is true
that the child inevitably develops Oedipal wishes as
part of the normal phases of Oedipal development,
but as Fenichel so aptly put it: ‘‘Unusual behavior on
the part of the parents creates unusual Oedipus
complexes on the part of the children’’ (Fenichel,
1945, p. 95). To this I would also add that unusual
Laius wishes on the part of the parent also create
unusual Oedipus complexes, since it has long been
noted that children have an uncanny ability to intuit
their parents’ unconscious. For psychoanalysis, then,
the question of which comes first
the Oedipus
complex or the Laius complex
is perhaps not really
the relevant point: the two influence each other in a
mutual dialectic.
Trauma exists. But so does fantasy and the
distortion of real experiences. This is true on both
sides of the generational divide. The Oedipal boy
may see the father as a castrating tyrant, but the
father may also see the helpless infant as a dangerous
rival. The question then is not whether we are
dealing with the real object or the imagined object,
with reality or fantasy, but some sort of an amalgam
of the two.
As mentioned earlier, it was Freud who intro-
duced the idea of a complemental series, the inter-
action of nature and nurture, drive and object. When
Freud abandoned the seduction theory, he did not
repudiate the idea that seductions exist, but instead
shifted the emphasis to the meaning a patient may
give to this or any other event. Likewise, it is the
psychic meaning a child will give to the parent’s
Laius complex, how it is absorbed and internalized
by the child, and how this interacts with the child’s
own instinctual wishes that seems to be of para-
mount importance.
Clinical utility of the Laius complex
Is the Laius complex a useful construct for psycho-
analytic treatment? As practicing analysts, we do not
deal in the starkness of black or white, but in the
tension between these extremes. The choice for us is
never either/or, but always both. We think of love and
hate, sadism and masochism, past and present,
Oedipal and pre-Oedipal, fantasy and reality. And
to this foreshortened list, I would also add: Oedipus
and Laius.
The Laius complex has clinical utility in regards to
three crucial areas of analysis: the ability to recognize
the Laius complex in one’s parent, the ability to
recognize Laius issues in one’s adult self, and for
understanding the complicated nexus of trans-
ference
countertransference reactions. All of these
areas provide a potential for regression, but may also
offer new opportunities to rework old Oedipal
conflicts.
For the patient to recognize the Laius complex in
their parent or in their own adult self implies a
capacity to tolerate ambivalence and contradiction.
Parental figures love, nurture, and protect their
children
but they also feel threatened, rivalrous,
and murderous toward them. Thus, the Laius
complex, like the Oedipus complex, means an end
to the illusion of perfect, unambivalent love. This
awareness entails a painful loss, but out of this loss
there may grow a further sense of separateness and
selfhood for both parent and child. In addition, the
ability to recognize the tragic dimension in the
struggle between the generations also implies a
capacity to forgive and move on. Perhaps this may
be one way to relinquish the psychic ties of excessive
love or excessive hatred in order to develop a
capacity for new choices in the future, less over-
shadowed by old Oedipal and post-Oedipal currents.
The Laius complex may also help us understand
transference
countertransference dynamics, parti-
cularly the latter. From the patient’s side, the
capacity to tolerate a more ambivalent view of the
analyst, like the parent, may also help to resolve

important transference issues. From the analyst’s
side, the goal is to analyze, and the guiding beacon is
analytic neutrality. This is a goal to aspire to, but one
that is never achieved in reality. Even in the most
well-analyzed analysts, something of the Laius com-
plex is still present. To hide behind the idea of
perfect analytic neutrality, like perfect parental love,
is neither useful nor desirable and may blind the
analyst to their own countertransferential Laius
issues.
To apply the idea of a Laius complex to analytic
practice may seem to imply the need to separate
historical truth from narrative truth. Although some
of our analytic work may include precisely such a
disentangling, we do not on the other hand want to
make the parents’ failings the central focus of our
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investigations. As Bergmann points out, to do so
would reintroduce Freud’s old seduction theory. The
patient would be seen as victim, the parent as
aggressor. Neurosis would then have its origin, not
in the child, but in the parent. Bergmann goes on to
add that this would result in a therapy that would
provoke less resistance, but would not be as deep or
‘‘as freeing as [one] that brings to life the patient’s
unconscious aggressive wishes toward the parents’’
(Bergmann, 1992, p. 312). But to dismiss the Laius
complex may collude with the patient to disavow the
admixture of love and hatred that is part of both the
child and adult complex, and to diminish a patient’s
capacity to tolerate a view of self and other that
includes ambivalence, ambiguity, and duality.
Conclusion
I would propose that the Laius complex does deserve
recognition in the psychoanalytic vocabulary. How-
ever, I do not believe, as Devereux does, that the
Laius complex causes the Oedipus complex. The
child will inevitably pass through the Oedipal phase
regardless of the qualities of the parent, although
parental differences may introduce variations into it.
Of course it matters whether or not a child has been
literally abused, but, as mentioned earlier, the crucial
factor is the meaning the adult patient will make of
this.
The Oedipus complex is still central as a phase of
development, an organizer of theory, and a guiding
principle of analytic work. The Laius complex
remains a latter vicissitude of this crucial childhood
phase. If this so, why give a separate name to the
adult complex? The Laius complex, albeit a vicissi-
tude of the Oedipus complex, is not its exact
analogue. Various transformations and modifications
have been introduced on the road from childhood to
adulthood. To give it a name, to introduce language,
elevates the Laius complex to consciousness. Myth
The Laius complex 227
translates universal unconscious constellations and
gives them voice and shape. This is also what Freud
did by naming his nuclear complex after his hero
Oedipus. To give similar voice and shape to the adult
complex makes explicit what was already implicit in
Freud: that the Oedipus complex takes place within
a uniquely social setting
the family
and that it is a
drama that involves both parent and child.
On one level, then, the Laius complex is a
derivative of the childhood Oedipus complex, but
perhaps, at its deepest level, the Laius complex can
be seen as a defense against mortality. Every child
commits a form of parricide as they gradually
internalize parental functions and take them over.
Every parent in turn commits a form of infanticide as
they attempt to undo this threat. This is an
important point also emphasized by Hans Loewald
in his paper ‘‘The waning of the Oedipus complex.’’
He notes that, in the intergenerational struggles
between parent and child, one side is always
diminished by the emancipation of the other, and
so, in the battle for ascendancy, neither parricide nor
filicide is ever one-sided.
In conclusion, I would like to make some final
remarks about the Laius/Oedipus complex. Inherent
in the Oedipus myth is the conflict between insight
and blindness. Oedipus can solve the riddle of the
sphinx, but is blind to his own identity. Laius can try
to outsmart the Oracle, but he does not know that
his son lives. Jocasta can grasp that in dreams ‘‘many
a man had laid with his mother,’’ but cautions
Oedipus from seeing too deeply into this. Whenever
something is brightly illuminated, something else is
cast into darkness.
It is therefore not surprising perhaps that the
history of the interpretation of the Oedipus myth is
also characterized by precisely this paradox. Freud
and Sophocles, by focusing such a bright light on
Oedipus, cast into shadow the role of Laius and
Jocasta. Devereux, on the other hand, by seeking to
resurrect the pre-Sophoclean importance of Laius,
ends up eclipsing the significance of Oedipus.
Bergmann, following Devereux, focuses on the
father’s aggression and tends to obscure the role of
Jocasta and the incestuous dimension. And cultu-
rally, while nineteenth-century society may have
colluded to ignore the victimization of children, the
popular culture of today, as patriarchy wanes, has
with a vengeance turned its attention to the subject
of child abuse and the repressed memory syndrome.
Perhaps the price for any profound insight is a
concomitant blind spot. Freud himself notes that
the closing chorus in Oedipus Rex heralds a warning
to our prideful and often blind adult selves:
 228 I. Levy
. . . Fix on Oedipus your eyes,
Who resolved the dark enigma, noblest champion and
most wise.
Like a star his envied fortune mounted beaming far and
wide:
Now he sinks in seas of anguish, whelmed beneath a
raging tide . . .
(Freud, 1900, p. 263)
It is perhaps not the failure to see either the Oedipus
complex or the Laius complex that is at issue here,
but rather the tragic dimension of the ineluctability
of intergenerational conflict. Parent and child will
always be at odds, and conflict over unbearable
sexual and aggressive wishes will forever reside
within all of us. Perhaps one way to overcome the
blindness of excessive one-sided illumination is to
Downloaded by [University of Liverpool] at 13:11 30 December 2014
incorporate a bifocal vision, one that casts some-
times light and sometimes shadow on both the
childhood and the adult complexes; in other words,
to acknowledge both the Oedipus and the Laius
complexes.
Acknowledgments
A version of this paper was first presented to the
Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society in New York
City in December, 1998. A second version of this
paper was presented at the IFPS conference in
Brooklyn, New York in May, 2000. I gratefully
acknowledge contributions from Dr. Ava Siegler in
private discussion. I am also profoundly grateful to
Dr. Robinson Lilienthal for his invaluable contribu-
tions, insights, and editorial assistance.
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Author
Iris Levy is a training analyst, senior supervisor and
faculty member at the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic
Society and Institute, and is a graduate of both the
psychoanalytic and supervisory training programs at
the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health. In 1993,
she was the recipient of the Emmanuel K. Schwartz
Memorial award for her paper on ‘‘Superego issues in
psychoanalytic supervision’’, and in 2000, she re-
ceived the Arlene and Lewis Wolberg Memorial
Award for her paper on the ‘‘Laius complex’’. She
was formerly an associate editor of the journal of the
Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society, Psychoanalysis
and Psychotherapy, and has published several articles
on psychoanalysis. She maintains a private practice in
New York City.