The Sphinx and the Riddles of Passion, Love and Sexuality

107 Pages·2013·2.692 MB·English

by  Zwettler-Otte, Sylvia

The Sphinx and the Riddles of Passion, Love and Sexuality

Sylvia Zwettler-Otte (ed.)
The Sphinx and the
Riddles of Passion,
Love and Sexuality
Contributions by
Stefano Bolognini, Rainer Gross
and Sylvia Zwettler-Otte
Preface by Alain Gibeault
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche
Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the
internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Cover illustration:
Sphinx dissolving in rain © Saskia Lassmann
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The sphinx and the riddles of passion, love and sexuality / contribu-
tions by Stefano Bolognini, Rainer Gross and Sylvia Zwettler-Otte ;
Sylvia Zwettler-Otte (ed.) ; preface by Alain Gibeault.
pages cm
ISBN 978-3-631-63982-5
1. Symbolism (Psychology) 2. Psychoanalysis. I. Zwettler-Otte,
Sylvia, 1946- II. Bolognini, Stefano. „Countertransferenceless“
Sphinx. III. Gross, Rainer. Sphinx as Oedipus other mother.
IV.Zwettler-Otte, Sylvia, 1946- Three balancing acts of the Sphinx.
BF175.5.S95S64 2013
150.19'5—dc23
2013018978
ISBN 978-3-631-63982-5 (Print)
E-ISBN 978-3-653-01962-9 (E-Book)
DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-01962-9
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Frankfurt am Main 2013
All rights reserved.
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the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to
prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions,
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Acknowledgements
It was Rainer Gross’ idea to publish our papers on The Sphinx and the Riddles of
Passion, Love and Sexuality, which were presented and very well received in a
panel of the EPF-Conference in London in 2010, and I thank him very much for
his substantial support.
I am very grateful to Stefano Bolognini, the president elect of the IPA, and to
Alain Gibeault, who both had contributed to the panel and now, in spite of their
multiple and great tasks in the European Psychoanalytic Federation (EPF) and
the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), welcomed our project and
elaborated their valuable contributions for this publication. My gratitude also
goes to the EPF-programme-committees of the conferences for providing an
open space for presentations and discussions and thus for fostering our ideas
within professional communities. The papers I added here were also presented at
the EPF conferences in Copenhagen (2011) and Paris (2012); in their final ver-
sion they owe much to the lively feed backs.
My thanks go to Gerda Schöbinger for her very helpful computer assistance,
and to Helga Wolfgruber for her photo assistance.
Finally I thank Peter Lang publishing house, in the first instance Norbert Wil-
lenpart in Vienna, who is capable of kindly balancing scientific and economic
interests, Stefan Tönne and Anne-Kathrin Grimmeißen, who facilitated the final
process of publishing and helped to make this booklet ready for a first presenta-
tion at the IPA-Conference in Prague 2013.
Last not least I want to thank my husband for supporting me, whenever I was
in danger of becoming overwhelmed by the editorial work.
Sylvia Zwettler-Otte, Vienna
5

Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... 5
Preface
Alain Gibeault ..................................................................................................... 11
Introduction
Sylvia Zwettler-Otte ............................................................................................ 19
The “countertransferenceless” Sphinx: the narcissistic myth of
impenetrability
Stefano Bolognini ................................................................................................ 31
The Sphinx as Oedipus' other Mother
Rainer Gross ....................................................................................................... 39
Freud’s selection of “Oedipus material” .................................................. 41
Attempts at psychoanalytical interpretation ............................................ 51
Images of the Sphinx in art ...................................................................... 55
Three balancing acts of the Sphinx
Sylvia Zwettler-Otte ............................................................................................ 63
Can we solve the riddle of sexual love without killing the Sphinx? ........ 63
Lost Steps? – Avoidance versus use of the death drive concept .............. 73
Sketches in the Patient’s Magic Drawing Book ...................................... 87
About the authors .............................................................................................. 103
Figures .............................................................................................................. 105

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Fig. 1: Chauvet cave
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