Oedipal Experiences in Same-Sex Families

This book updates the Oedipus complex for a contemporary audience in the light of social and cultural changes and explores its implications for psychoanalytic treatment and our understanding of queer families.

Growing evidence during the past few decades indicates that children who grow up in same-sex families adapt well. These findings, which do not conform to the predictions of Oedipal theory, expose the theory’s biases, and call for reexamination of its premises. This book based on ground-breaking research and pursues a methodical investigation of the characteristics of the same-sex families that defy the expectations of Oedipal theory. Furnished with vivid illustrations, it invites the reader to engage actively in the interpretive effort and presents a diverse and complex story about kinship, opening a window onto a rich world of infantile phantasies and parents’ psychological conflicts, at the fascinating intersection of the personal and the social.

Oedipal Experiences in Same-Sex Families will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, educators and policymakers, same-sex parents, and parents who were assisted by gamete donation.

Dr. Yifat Eitan-Persico is a practicing clinical psychologist and a candidate in the Israel psychoanalytic society. She is a translator and editor of psychoanalytic writings, and a lecturer in post-graduate psychoanalytic programs. The Hebrew edition of this book was awarded the prestigious Bahat Prize for the best academic book, 2021.