Deferred obedience
Deferred obedience is a psychological phenomenon first articulated by Sigmund Freud, whereby a onetime rebel becomes subservient to the very rules and standards against which they had previously been rebelling.
To father figures
Deferred obedience was linked by Freud to the effects of repression,[1] with especial reference to the father complex. In the case of the Rat Man, Freud described the different phases of his complex attitude towards his father: 'As long as his father was alive it showed itself in unmitigated rebelliousness and open discord, but immediately after his death it took the form of a neurosis based on abject submission and deferred obedience to him'.[2]
In Totem and Taboo Freud generalised the principle to the cultural sphere, arguing that the basis of the social bond underpinning civilisation was equally rooted in deferred obedience to the authority of the father.[3] It was no contradiction, but rather a confirmation, of the theory to see outbreaks of Carnival-like licence as occasions when the controls of deferred obedience were temporarily lifted.[4]
To the mother/parents
In a later development of the idea, Jacqueline Rose would speak of "deferred obedience to the mother, as the return of the (cultural) repressed".[5] The death of the parents would seem to reinforce, rather than weaken, the force of their commands,[6] and so often to precipitate deferred obedience.[7]
See also
- Afterwardsness
- Jacques Derrida
- Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work
References
- ^ Sigmund Freud, Standard Edition X (London 1955), p. 35
- ^ Sigmund Freud, Case Histories II (London 1991), p. 191
- ^ Jose Bruner, Freud and the Politics of Psychoanalysis (2001), p. 161
- ^ Julia Kristeva/Jeanine Herman, The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt (Columbia 2001), p. 13
- ^ J. Rose, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath (1991) p. 195
- ^ E. Berne, Sex in Human Loving (1974) p. 148
- ^ S. Akhtar, Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2009) p. 72
External links
- Subversive obedience....
- v
- t
- e
- On Aphasia (1891)
- Studies on Hysteria (1895)
- The Interpretation of Dreams (including On Dreams) (1899)
- The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)
- Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905)
- Totem and Taboo (1913)
- Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1916–17)
- The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (1917)
- Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921)
- The Ego and the Id (1923)
- The Question of Lay Analysis (1926)
- The Future of an Illusion (1927)
- Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)
- Moses and Monotheism (1939)
- "The Aetiology of Hysteria" (1896)
- Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905)
- Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva (1907)
- Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming (1908)
- Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood (1910)
- On Narcissism (1914)
- The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (1914)
- Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work (1915)
- Thoughts for the Times on War and Death (1916)
- Mourning and Melancholia (1918)
- Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)
- Medusa's Head (1922)
- Dostoevsky and Parricide (1928)
- "Dora" (Ida Bauer)
- Emma Eckstein
- Herbert Graf ("Little Hans")
- Irma's injection
- "Anna O." (Bertha Pappenheim)
- "Rat Man"
- Sergei Pankejeff ("Wolfman")
- Daniel Paul Schreber
concepts
- Psychoanalysis
- Id, ego and superego
- Libido
- Preconscious
- Ego ideal
- censorship
- Free association
- Transference
- Psychosexual development
- Oedipus complex
- Deferred obedience
- Reality principle
- Seduction theory
- Bibliography
- Archives
- Vienna home and museum
- London home and museum
- Interment
- Freudian slip
- Humor
- Inner circle
- Neo-Freudianism
- Views on homosexuality
- Religious views
depictions
- Freud: The Secret Passion (1962 film)
- The Visitor (1993 play)
- Mahler on the Couch (2010 film)
- A Dangerous Method (2011 film)
- Freud (2020 TV series)
- Freud's Last Session (2023 film)