Sexual Psychodynamics I: The Origins of Male Aggression

Editor's Note: Psychoanalysis was originally based on Freud's ideas about psychosexual development. As knowledge about human sexuality has accrued at an ever increasing rate, it has become apparent that beliefs about sexuality once thought to be central by the psychoanalytic community require radical revision. Richard C. Friedman and Jennifer I Downey have carried out pioneering scholarship that has integrated modern research findings about sexual orientation with psychodynamic psychiatry. They are now preparing a series of articles discussing many aspects of human sexuality from a psychodynamic perspective and we are pleased to include the first of these, on male aggression in this edition of the journal.—DHI

At its inception, psychoanalytic psychology heavily emphasized sexuality. Freud's ideas about the centrality of sexuality in development and in the etiology of psychopathology were accepted for many years by organized psychoanalysis and psychiatry. Modern psychoanalytic theory has replaced sexuality as an organizing concept with diverse paradigms and the field has fragmented as a result.

Of the many theories that Freud posed about the role of sexuality in psychological functioning perhaps his most influential were those pertaining to the Oedipus complex. In this, the first article of a series on the psychodynamic aspects of human sexuality, Oedipal aggression in males is considered from a biopsychosocial perspective. Knowledge about sexual differentiation of the brain and sex differences in behavior resulting from research carried out after Freud's death suggests the need to revise Freud's ideas about the Oedipus complex.