«Birth Complex»: Existential-Phenomenological Interpretation of the Myth about Oedipus

Article

Abstract

[In Russian]

The article proposes a new existential-phenomenological interpretation of the myth about Oedipus, which reveals its paradigmatic meaning for the comprehension of depression, melancholy and neurotic conditions connected with them. Pointing at the reductionism nature of the psychoanalytical (Freudian) interpretation of the myth about Oedipus, the author at the same time exceeds the limits of its aletheialogical interpretation that is common for the existential-phenomenological tradition (M. Heidegger, R. May). In the article the thesis is justified that the existential drama of the Thebes king is constructed in the end not around the question about truth but around the problem of realization of oneself in one’s facticity that is rooted in the fact of the birth. The author shows that «Oedipus Complex» is birth complex and outlines in this connection new ways for the therapeutic work.