Internet Discussion Forum Summary

 J. Anal. Psychol., 2000,  45, 4,  521-39↗

There were two postings into the Discussion Forum about this paper: an initial comment from Reid Anderson of the Inter-regional Society of Jungian Analysts, USA, which was then responded to by Warren Colman. I reproduce them here.

Reid Anderson wrote:

A very interesting and stimulating paper, particularly Colman's description of the ‘Chronos complex’ as appropriation of the inner and outer couples leading to omnipotent visions of paternal authority.

The case and the ‘Chronos complex’ fitted well with the films, but relations to myth and legend seem more complex than described. Colman emphasizes the ‘traditional’ description of the Oedipus complex as a slanted and truncated version of the myth, and its psychoanalytic resolution (Freudian) a variant of identification with the aggressor. By the same measure, delimitation of ‘the typical Oedipal complex [to] the struggle against the feared omnipotence of the mother’ seems a (Kleinian) oversimplification of both myth and complex. ‘In the Uranos/Chronos/Zeus cycle there is ‘too much father’, and not enough mother, in the Oedipus story there is ‘too much mother’ and not enough father’, provides a useful contrast, but it may overlook the subtleties and paradoxes involved in the relations between mother and father gods as well as ‘fate’ in relation to both - especially regarding Oedipus. Like archetypes, myths are profoundly interrelated. When we look at the Thebian cycle, the ‘too much mother’ of Oedipus the king becomes the ‘too much father’ of Antigone and Creon. Similarly, the ‘too much father’ problem of the first three Star Wars episodes looks like a ‘too much mother’ problem when Darth Vader is revealed as the son of a single mother in the latest episode. The absent father is a spiritual presence. In abruptly taking young Anakin from his mother we seem to have ‘too much father’ and ‘too much mother’, and perhaps, not e