Discussion of Ross's “Progression From Oral to Oedipal Themes: A Defense Against the Experience of Object Loss”—An Alternative Paradigm

Sometimes the very word or words we use to describe a psychological phenomenon carry the implied weight of what these words signify. Once the signifier (Horner, 1995) has been chosen, it becomes the organizing principle for understanding or interpreting significant aspects of the clinical picture. When we speak about what is preoedipal and what is oedipal, we are implying a structural difference—one the more primitive and the other the more advanced. In this article, the very use of the word “progression,” implies a structural shift from a more primitive structure to one that is more advanced. Oedipal interpretations of historical and clinical data follow from the use of this signifier. On the other hand, if we use the term “oedipal fantasies,” we can analyze the origins and dynamic significance of these fantasies. The structural pathology then becomes the organizing principle of the clinical data. The author's own concept of the oedipal mask for oral wishes brings us much closer to the necessity of unmasking these wishes and thus closer to a more fundamental and valid understanding of the patient's personality disorder. However, at the outset of the article, she says she is referring to evidence of different levels of personality organization, not merely to fantasies. The use of psychosexual stages of development as another organizing principle in some ways confines the author to thinking in those terms. An alternative one, with object relations development as the organizing principle, brings one to a quite different understanding of the clinical picture. The purpose of this discussion is to illustrate how the theoretical paradigm one uses creates an organizing principle that slants the analysis in a particular direction. Whereas the validity of the conclusions is measured by their consistency with that organizing principle, its clinical usefulness may be another matter.