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Kourétas, considered the dean of psychoanalysts in Greece, has a special interest in Greek mythology and culture. In this paper, he examines the myth of
Oedipus as originally mentioned by Homer in The Odyssey (XI, 271-280), and then modified by Sophocles and interpreted by Freud.
Homer described only the patricide and the incest of Oedipus; Sophocles went further, telling us about the Sphinx, the self-blinding, the exile, and the burial of the hero at Colonus (where Sophocles was born). Kourétas believes this fact leads to the hypothesis that the tragedy of Oedipus contains additional data which can be understood as expressions of the poet himself—that Sophocles gave us a revelation of his own unconscious which is projected onto the person of Oedipus and that the Oedipus tragedy is a self-confession of Sophocles. This is indicated in the words of Jocasta to Oedipus (Oedipus Rex, lines 979-983) which contain all the essentials of the freudian Oedipus complex. Sophocles, following the traditional role of the dramatist, transferred the original myth into something that would be entertaining to his audience. Kourétas believes that a component of Sophocles' success lies in the communal chord which was struck by the universal conflict. At the same time, the play served as a vehicle of catharsis, confession, and expiation for the dramatist. Kourétas doubts that Sophocles was 'aware' of the psychological or 'scientific' meaning of his production.
Awareness of this came with the genius of Freud, who is credited with truly solving the riddle of the Sphinx. Freud's discoveries were basically derived from an early profound curiosity about his own origins. Further self-analysis and research on neurotic patients brought confirmatory evidence.
This paper, presented before a Greek professional audience, is like a 'return of the repressed'. Since, ironically, Greek psychiatric thought of today is based mainly on the organic-nosological tradition, Kourétas attempts to return