Dialogic Repression and the Oedipus Complex: Reinterpreting the Little Hans Case

Abstract

This paper offers a discursive reinterpretation of the psychoanalytic concept of repression. Language is both expressive and repressive, and, therefore, children, in acquiring language, learn to repress rhetorically. The sort of repressions which, according to classic Freudian theory, occur as a result of the Oedipus Complex are themselves dialogically and socially constituted. In consequence, the processes of repression can be examined by extending the techniques of discursive psychology. These ideas are examined in relation to Freud's case of Little Hans, paying attention to the ways that the adults are implicitly practising and teaching repression. It is argued that Freud, in his interpretations, repressed the themes of parental power and desire. The dialogic details show Hans to be developing within a social world in which dialogic repression is habitually practised by adults. The implications of such notions for developmental and discursive psychology are discussed.