Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

March 13, 1973. CRUCIFIXION FANTASIES AND THEIR RELATION TO THE PRIMAL SCENE. Henry Edelheit, M.D.

Dr. Edelheit noted that conscious and unconscious crucifixion fantasies (identifications with the crucified Christ) are not uncommon. They can be understood in normal persons and in patients as manifestations of a mental pattern which he calls 'primal scene schema'. This pattern derives from childhood identification with both parents in the act of copulation. In crucifixion fantasies—one form of primal scene fantasy—the figure of Christ nailed to the cross represents the combined image of the parents (nailed together) and, by way of the double identification with the parents, the helpless, observing child.

The mysteriousness and ambiguity of the sexual act as perceived by the child can be summed up in these questions: What is happening? To whom? Who is the victim and who is the aggressor? How many people are involved? Which one has the penis? Am I (the observing child) participating or excluded? The primary form of the primal scene schema consists of the double identification with a copulating pair. A secondary form, consisting of identification with a nursing pair (mother and child), is often superimposed upon the primary form, where it adds a powerful source of ambiguity from an earlier period, and is expressed in the image of the Madonna and Child. Sleeping/waking patterns of the nursing infant resonate with the death/resurrection theme of Crucifixion.

In addition to the polarities male/female and mother/child, the double identification of the primal scene schema can encompass such independent polarities as active/passive, victim/aggressor, sadist/masochist, viewer/exhibitor, and alternation of such ideas as eating and being eaten. The primal scene schema serves as a framework for the polymorphous sexual organization of early childhood as well as the mental representation of bisexuality in normal adults. It enters into the structuring of the Oedipal con