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The family has been and still is a central and controversial point of discussion in social theory and psychoanalysis. On the one hand, one can observe the crucial role assigned to the family in the formation of the subject and their psyche present in several articulations of the Oedipal complex in psychoanalysis. On the other hand, the feminist critique of the family as a space of violence (Miller, 2006) or the anarchist, Marxist and queer appropriations of the family to advocate for alternative communal sites based on care networks (Hybris, 2022) are becoming more prominent in both the academic field and activist work.
The book Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family: The Crisis of Initiation by Daniel Tutt proposes a new approach to the role of the family within social reproduction by introducing different readings of how the superego is constructed and affects the subject. In this sense, far from providing a conservative reading from the vantage point of orthodox psychoanalysis, Daniel Tutt raises an interesting question: do the Oedipal complex and its dynamics still offer an adequate reading of the scene of the family? While theoretical psychoanalytically influenced positions with regard to this complex vary, from the rejection of a rereading or rearticulation of the complex to those who affirm we live in post-Oedipal societies, Tutt aims to reappraise this myth by establishing a solid dialogue with psychoanalytical historian Christopher Lasch.
Tutt’s first critique addresses the contradictory character of the nuclear family, which is simultaneously the epicentre of bourgeois social reproduction and the only refuge from the pernicious dimensions of society. In this sense, Tutt criticizes the hegemonic structure of the family in our societies, affirming that ‘the stable family is itself a contradiction that is rooted in a nostalgia for a more properly privatized bourgeois family where greater leisure time and family agency was available’ (p. 7). After develop