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= D.: kannibalisch.–Es.: cannibalístico.–Fr.: cannibalique.–I.: cannibalico.–P.: canibalesco.
Term used, by analogy with the cannibalism practised by certain peoples, to qualify object-relationships and phantasies correlated with oral activity. It is a figurative description of the various dimensions of oral *: love, destruction, preservation within the self of the object and the appropriation of its qualities. The name ‘cannibalistic stage’ is sometimes given to the *–or, more specifically, to Abraham's second oral stage (*).
Although the first edition of the Three Essays on the Theory of (1905d) does contain one allusion to cannibalism, it is not until Totem and Taboo (1912-13) that this idea is developed. Freud brings out the belief that is implicit in this practice of ‘primitive races’: ‘By incorporating parts of a person's body through the act of eating, one at the same time acquires the qualities possessed by him’ 1a. The Freudian conception of the ‘murder of the father’ and of the ‘totem meal’ invests this idea with great importance: ‘One day the brothers […] came together, killed and devoured their father and so made an end of the patriarchal horde. […] In the act of devouring him they accomplished their identification with him, and each one of them acquired a portion of his strength’ 1b.
Whatever the validity of Freud's anthropological views, the term ‘’ has attained a well-defined meaning in psycho-analytic psychology. In the 1915 edition of the Three Essays, where Freud introduces the idea of an oral organisation, cannibalism is seen as a characteristic of this stage of psychosexual development. Writers since Freud have often spoken of a cannibalistic stage when referring to the oral stage. Karl Abraham, when he subdivides the oral stage into two phases–a preambivalent sucking phase and an * biting phase–treats only the second one as cannibalistic.
This epithet underlines certain characteristics of the oral object-relationship: * of libido and a