From Anti-Oedipus to Anti-Narcissus
Proposals to Decolonize Psychoanalysis
Abstract
According to Deleuze and Guattari ([1972] 2009), the Oedipus complex is a historically produced social symptom that captures desire in neurotic and familial, capitalist, and Christian forms. From this perspective, narcissism is not a primordial condition, which precedes the Oedipus complex phase, but is its consequence and effect, reversing the logic of human development postulated by Psychoanalysis. The aim here is to carry on with Deleuze and Guattari’s criticisms of Psychoanalysis, approaching narcissism as a phenomenon manufactured by this same civilization that aims to combat it. If in Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari demonstrate that the Oedipus complex is not a natural and universal path to the formations of the unconscious, but is produced by the civilized capitalist machine, Narcissus is now placed in the spotlight, unfolding the narratives of psychoanalytic theory about a supposed anti-social human nature.
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