Murdered Father Dead Father

<p><em>Murdered Father Dead Father: Revisiting the Oedipus Complex</em> examines the progressive construction of the notion of paternal function and its central relevance in psychoanalysis. </p><p>The distinction between the <i>murdered (narcissistic) father </i>and the <i>dead father</i> is seen as providing a paradigm for the understanding of different types of psychopathologies as well as works of literature anthropology and historical events. New concepts are introduced such as <i>a father is being beaten</i> and a distinction between the <i>descriptive après coup</i> and the <i>dynamic après coup</i> that provides a model for a psychoanalytic understanding of temporality. The book includes a reflection on how the concepts of the <i>death instinct</i> and the <i>negative</i> in their connection with that which is at the limits of representability are an aid to an understanding of Auschwitz a moment of rupture in European culture that the author characterizes as the murder of the dead father. </p><p>Perelberg’s book is an important clinical and intellectual marker and will be required reading for psychoanalysts psychotherapists anthropologists and historians as well as students in all these disciplines.</p>