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Characterization and definitions vary across cultures, but incest refers to [[sexual ]] relations between close relatives. Prohibition may be according to custom or [[morality]], and embodied in law. In [[psychoanalysis]], the term is also and especially discussed in [[terms ]] of [[fantasy ]] and [[psychological ]] [[conflict]].

[[Freud ]] mentioned incest for the first [[time ]] in his correspondence with Wilhelm [[Fliess ]] (Draft N, dated May 31, 1897), in which he explained "saintliness" in terms of its impious and anti-[[social ]] [[character ]] (1950a). A [[family ]] primordially promiscuous would be [[forced ]] to give up incestuous [[behavior ]] in [[order ]] to avoid [[being ]] socially isolated.

Incest subsequently became a central theme in Freud's formulation of the [[Oedipus ]] [[complex]], defined as a [[child]]'s conflict between sexual [[desire ]] for the parent of the opposite sex (the "positive" [[oedipal ]] complex) and [[repression ]] of that desire. The [[theory ]] was put forth in [[Three ]] Essays on the Theory of [[Sexuality ]] (1905d) and in Freud's [[discussion ]] of the [[case ]] of "Little [[Hans]]" (1909b), among [[other ]] works.

From the start Freud also discussed the incest [[taboo ]] in an anthropological context, in terms of its [[role ]] in the evolution of [[society]]. The first chapter of [[Totem ]] and Taboo (1912-13a) was devoted to "the [[horror ]] of incest" and was based on the [[work ]] of contemporary ethnologists. For Freud it was important to establish that such a taboo operated in every [[human ]] society. This view gained some support in the work of later anthropologists, including Claude Lévi-[[Strauss]], who, however, maintained reservations regarding Freud's obligatory corollary, that the Oedipus complex was "[[universal]]." (See André Green [1995] for a discussion of [[Lévi-Strauss]]'s views.)

Freud held that [[psychic ]] [[energy ]] which accumulates through repression of sexual [[gratification]], prohibitions owed to the oedipal [[situation]], becomes an essential force propelling the [[development ]] of [[civilization]], especially through channels of [[sublimation]]. In "'[[Civilized]]' Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous [[Illness]]" (1908d), Freud suggested that repression can also provoke psychological disorders through the "damming-up" of [[libido ]] (the "actual" [[neuroses]]) or by [[substitute ]] [[symptom ]] [[formation ]] (the psychoneuroses). The price of civilized morality is high when repression adversely affects too many individuals and distorts the social fabric; Freud examined these issues in Group [[Psychology ]] and the [[Analysis ]] of the Ego (1921c) and in [[Civilization and Its Discontents ]] (1930a).

The incest theme has received little attention in contemporary [[psychoanalytic ]] [[literature]]; an exception is [[Paul]]-Claude Racamier's interesting [[treatment ]] of the "incestual" (1995).

See also: Ethics; Family romance; Framework of the psychoanalytic treatment; Law and psychoanalysis; Myth of origins; Oedipus complex; Phantom; Privation; Prohibition; Psychology of the Unconscious, The; Secret; "Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes"; Tenderness; Totem and Taboo; Transgression.==References==Bibliography<references/>  * # [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243. * # ——. (1909b). Analysis of a [[phobia ]] in a five-year-old boy. SE, 10: 1-149. * # ——. (1921c). [[Group psychology ]] and the analysis of the ego. SE, 18: 65-143. * # ——. (1908d). "Civilized" sexual morality and modern nervous illness. SE, 9: 177-204. * # ——. (1912-13a). Totem and taboo. SE, 13: 1-161. * # ——. (1930a). Civilization and its discontents. SE, 21: 57-145. * # ——. (1950a [1897]). Draft N. "Impulses, [[fantasies ]] and [[symptoms]]." SE, 1: 173-280. * # Green, André. (1995). La Casualité psychique. [[Paris]]: Odile [[Jacob]]. Propédeutique. La métapsychologie revisitée. Paris: l'Or d'Atalante. * # Racamier, Paul-Claude. (1995). L'[[inceste ]] et l'incestuel. Paris: Éditions du Collège de [[psychanalyse ]] groupale et familiale. Further [[Reading]]  * # Simon, Bennett. (1992). Incest—see under "oedipus complex": the [[history ]] of an error in psychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic [[Association]], 40, 955-988. * Simon, Bennett, and Bullock, Christopher. (1994). Incest and psychoanalysis: Are we ready to fully acknowledge, bear and understand? Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 42, 1261-1282.