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May 22, 1962. THE QUEST FOR THE FATHER. A STUDY OF THE DARWIN-BUTLER CONTROVERSY AS A CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE CREATIVE PERSON. Phyllis Greenacre, M.D.
In the Twelfth Freud Anniversary Lecture, Dr. Greenacre used the material of the controversy between Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler to illustrate her thesis concerning the special nature and vicissitudes of the Oedipus complex in gifted men. This controversy, an argument about the merits of Darwin's theories of evolution which were challenged by Butler, was due less to conflicting scientific views than to the special interaction of forces brought about by the changing personal relationship between the two men. This, in turn, was dependent largely on the interplay of the unconscious elements of their Oedipal problems.
The lecture was divided into four parts: a statement of the thesis; a description of the controversy; a resumé of the biographical background of the two men; and finally, a rediscussion of Dr. Greenacre's theory in terms of the clinical material.
In the first part, the author restated what she considers to be the essential innate characteristics of gifted people, presented more fully in her earlier papers on creativity. Gifted individuals retain a communication with primary process thought and imagery, and are oriented toward collective objects of the outer world as well as toward the personal objects of the immediate family relationships, sometimes alternating emotional involvement between the two sets of interests. These conditions lead to a susceptibility to peculiarities of libidinal phase development and frequently to special complications of the solution of the Oedipus complex. This tends toward the formation of a strong family romance, projected and lived out in later life in the repeated search for an ideal father, often materializing in a patron who will permit, protect, and accept the development of the expression of genius rather than diminishing or curtailing it in the