Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2008, 53, 615–617

Introduction to papers from the Conference‘Succeeding Laius: Intergenerational Difficulties in

Psychotherapy Organisations’

James Barrett, Leamington Spa, UK

This conference, held in London by the Confederation for Analytical Psy-chology1 on 10 March 2007, had various roots. The conference was part ofan attempt by the Confederation to reflect on turbulence in the organizationassociated with a transition in leadership from a founder member to a secondgeneration. But, of course, our experiences were not unique; transitions inleadership in psychotherapy organizations, particularly from founder membersto the next generation often generate strong anxieties in all involved, who seemto fear some kind of psychic annihilation. This is resonant with one of ourfounding mythologies: Freud’s fearfulness regarding his successor and Jung’sbreakdown following the ending of his relationship with Freud.

While one narrative of our experiences in the Confederation could be madein terms of the personalities involved, another could be made in terms of whatSinger (2002) and Kimbles (2000) have called a cultural complex by which wein the Confederation were gripped at that time.

When these complexes are triggered all of the emotion of the personal and archetypalrealm gets channelled through group life and its experience. ‘Cultural complexes’ arelived out in group life and they are internalized in the psyche of individuals.

(Singer 2004, p. 20)

What we may think of as a Laius complex haunts our profession. It seemsa bald fact that every substantial new growth in psychoanalytic theory hasbeen attended by such fear that the new progeny has only been able to thriveby calling it another family name, be it analytical psychology, middle group,independent, archetypal, developmental, and so on. Indeed, the speakers at thisconference included a psychoanalyst, a psychoanalytical psychotherapist, twoanalytical psychologists, and, as chair, a Jungian analytical psychotherapist.

1 The Confederation celebrates and enables the community of therapists engaged with Jungiantheory and practice in the UK. It includes analytical psychologists and Jungian analyticalpsychotherapists, and art therapists and counsellors who have had substantial Jungian analysisand supervision.

0021-8774/2008/5305/615 C© 2008, The Society of Analytical Psychology

Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

616 James Barrett

In his use of the myth of Oedipus, Freud of course emphasized theson’s murderousness towards the father, obscuring intergenerational dynamics,especially the mutual rivalry between father and son. Highlighting the part ofLaius brings attention to a different aspect of the myth: ‘Had Freud appliedthe same principle of inevitability to the entire myth, the parents’ wish tokill the child would then also have been universalized as the inevitable firststep in the Oedipus conflict and as the precipitating factor in the child’spreoccupation with incest and murder’ (Wheeley 1992). Taking the part playedby Laius into account enables a reading of the myth as being about symbolicinfanticide, a shadow of creativity, rather than predominantly about the child’smurderousness towards the parent.

The ambiguity of the conference title ‘Succeeding Laius’ plays with meaningsof both the inheritance of a cultural complex of inter-generational insecurityand the challenge to respond creatively. This was picked up by Ann Shearerin her paper for the conference which questioned the analysis of transitions inleadership as traumatic, taking a view that splitting is a means by which ourorganizations propagate: ‘it is the failure of our organizations to live creativelythat may be the root of so many of our institutional difficulties’.

The two conference papers published here were both connected with theconference’s origins. One of these roots was an earlier seminal paper by ourkeynote speaker, Kenneth Eisold, ‘Intolerance of diversity in psychoanalyticinstitutions’, where he described the subtle tensions that exist betweenourselves as clinicians and as members of professional associations resultingin ‘social defences’ (Menzies 1967) through which attitudes of knowingnessand unquestionable certainties arise in relation to membership of a society orgroup that are in marked contrast to the disciplines of listening and staying inbeing as clinicians.

Eisold’s paper for the conference uses the myth of Orestes in contrast to thatof Laius and Oedipus. In the Oresteia, Athena lays the foundations of the largercommunity of the state in creating a jury and finding a home for the Furies.This is prescient for current developments in the UK where the profession isat a critical point in the process towards state regulation. One effect of thiswill be that our small professional organizations will have to surrender theresponsibilities exercised by their ethics committees to hear complaints to acentralized complaints organization.

Olya Khaleelee takes as the subject of her paper another root of theconference, namely a turbulent transition in leadership at the London Centrefor Psychotherapy in the early 1980s, where I was at that time a trainee. Asa trainee with a Jungian analyst and supervisors at an eclectic institution, Iabsorbed and became part of the tensions of the field. We were taught andanalysed by psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists and yet were to becomepsychoanalytic psychotherapists. There were strongly felt, but unaccountable,hierarchies at work here, anomalous in the context of a professed dedicationto analysis of the transference. As Henry Abramovitch suggested in his paper

Introduction to papers from the Conference 617

for the conference, such divisions become entrenched, ‘because there is so littleat stake . . . except for the analysts’ most precious possession, their personalreputation’ (Abramovitch 2004).

References

Abramovitch, H. (2004). ‘Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua in the Analytic TrainingInstitute: A Talmudic text (Berachot 27b-28a) and the group life of analysts’. Journalof Jungian Practice, 6, 2, 21–40.

Eisold, K. (1994). ‘Intolerance of diversity in psychoanalytic institutions’. InternationalJournal of Psycho-Analysis, 75, 785.

Menzies, E. (1967). The Functioning of Social Systems as a Defence Against Anxiety.London: Tavistock Publications.

Singer, T. (2004). ‘Archetypal defenses of the group spirit’. In The Cultural Complex:Contemporary Perspectives on Psyche and Society, eds. T. Singer & S. Kimbles. Hove& New York: Brunner-Routledge.

Wheeley, S. (1992). ‘Looks that kill the capacity for thought’. Journal of AnalyticalPsychology, 37, 187.