You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Despite the recent upsurge of interest in creativity and the nature of scientific talent, the basic nature of genius has remained enshrouded in mystery. In particular the childhood origins of genius and its possible relationship to particular modes of psychosexual development have received neither study nor clarification.
This essay has grown out of a psychoanalytic biographical study1 of that prototypical genius, Michelangelo. A study of his unusual infancy and childhood led to a particular focus upon the mothering process and the first ten years of his life. This fundamental psychoanalytic problem of recreating an infancy and childhood buried in amnesia raised a number of questions: Do geniuses have a typical family constellation? Do they experience a characteristic mothering process? Is there any characteristic personality to be found in geniuses?
These questions in turn have led to a new insight into Oedipal dynamics and a formulation of what I have termed the Jocasta Complex. Taking Jocasta, the mother of Oedipus out of the obscurity into which psychoanalytic literature has relegated her and placing her on a par with Oedipus has many significant implications for psychoanalytic theory and practice.
In addition to a reexamination of the Oedipus-Jocasta myth, I have also made a study of other geniuses. The many biographies, autobiographies and psychological and psychoanalytical studies have provided a fertile field for investigation.4,6,8,14,15,16,20,24,25,33,38,41,42,60 Many of the impressions and tentative conclusions which have