Mythic Perspectives and Perspectives on Truth: Approaching Winnicott by Way of Comparisons Between Kohut and Freud

This article begins with a critical analysis of comparisons drawn by Kohut between his theory and Freud's theory, relating to (1) the paradigmatic use the two theorists respectively make of the Odysseus and Oedipus myths, and (2) the place of truth in the different hierarchies of values within their respective psychoanalytic theories. These comparisons between Kohut and Freud regarding the employment of myth and the value placed on truth encompass distinctly different psychoanalytic visions of reality and set the stage for further comparisons with Winnicott's work, in which the presence of myth has to do not with explicit mythic themes but with implicit mythic elements, and the value placed on truth has to do not with how high its position is in a value hierarchy but with how central its position is to the experience of feeling alive.1 This shift in conceptualizing the value placed on truth involves a by now familiar epistemological shift within psychoanalysis of the conceptual frame within which truth itself is viewed.

Freud believed that the conflicts and struggles portrayed in the riveting Greek drama of Oedipus Rex are central to the psychic life of people in general and, for all intents and purposes, he held up the myth of Oedipus as a universal mirror that bared the human soul. So adamant was Freud in his position that the story of Oedipus was the story of everyone that he postulated, along