Is the Oedipus Complex a Darwinian Adaptation?

Psychoanalysis has had more than its fair share of critics, but also, it must honestly be admitted, of cranks. On occasion even Freud was forced to distance himself from some of the more fanciful theories of his followers, for example, Otto Rank's attempt to trace all anxiety to birth trauma. As Freud (1926) noted,

Rank dwells, as suits him best, now on the child's recollection of its happy intrauterine existence, now on its recollection of the traumatic disturbance which interrupted that existence-which leaves the door wide open for arbitrary interpretation. (p. 136)

This prediction appears to have come ludicrously true in the case of a recent follower of Rank who thinks that the superego originates before birth in the “poisonous,” deoxygenated blood of the placenta! It is not difficult to imagine what Freud would have thought of this idea in the light of his criticisms of Rank's less farfetched theory.

Admittedly this is an extreme example, but it nicely illustrates the sort of nonsense that can so easily arise in psychoanalysis and that probably goes a long way toward explaining its poor reputation for scientific credibility in many quarters. Furthermore, if Rankian analysis were all we had, such a reputation would be largely deserved.

Part of the problem is highlighted by the very context in which Freud's comment about Rank's theory quoted above is found. In it Freud discusses Rank's ideas because he is concerned to revise his own regarding the nature of anxiety. Originally, Freud adopted a