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Upon my first reading of Devereux's stimulating paper, I was tempted to agree with his forceful points regarding parental cannibalism. I did not need the distance device of anthropological evidence but simply reminded myself of all the “devouring” parents I had come to see in work with children, particularly psychotic children and those suffering from borderline conditions. I enjoyed vicariously and temporarily the frequent regression (in the service of the professional ego) of child analysts who blame parents for the difficulties of their child patients. But after I felt almost completely devoured by Devereux's insistence, I started to reflect like Jonah in the stomach of the whale; I began to think as to how I could get out of the whale and do a bit of counter-cannibalistic discussing.
I recalled with pleasure another paper of Devereux's in which he explained the Oedipus complex as a counter-homicidal act in defense against the wish of Laius to murder helpless baby Oedipus. I imagined King Laius consulting a Freudian analyst He would have gotten him then to discover the Laius complex instead of the Oedipus complex whereas Devereux would have blamed the father of Laius as the one who instilled in Laius murderous wishes. Devereux struggles with the issue as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, when he thinks that he can “present data demonstrating that the cannibalistic impulses of parents underlie a psychic structure which originates in adulthood,” (italics mine). He might as well say that The Three Contributions to a Theory of Sex are but a projection of adult love life into the innocent mind of the child. He would not be the first one to claim that nor would he
be the last one if he cares to think that way. I know he does not. To suggest that an adult state of mind originates in adulthood is to maintain an arbitrary dividing line in development and to suggest that everything that went on before is irrelevant. All oral aggressive impulses of children or