October 12, 1948. THE PROBLEM OF INTERPRETATION IN PSYCHOANALYTIC ANTHROPOLOGY. Géza Róheim, Ph.D.

Róheim challenges the anthropological thesis that interpretations are valid only within the limits of one culture. He emphasizes the fact that Malinowski, who first propounded the thesis that there is no Oedipus complex in a matrilineal culture, had neither been analyzed nor (as he himself confessed) did he clearly understand psychoanalytic theory. 'It is very difficult to understand how a psychoanalyst of Fenichel's standing could have accepted Malinowski's naïve conclusions.' The tendency of modern anthropology is to emphasize sibling