Oedipus Reframed: From Greek Tragedy to Psychoanalytic Discipline

This paper examines the persistence of ancient mechanisms for addressing madness, particularly tragic catharsis, within the modern paradigms of mental health, drawing on Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization. The first section explores the collective dimension of catharsis in Greek tragedy, showing how shared affective experience mitigates communal suffering. The second turns to Freud’s reinterpretation of the Oedipus myth, which relocates interiority within the domain of sexuality and thus epitomizes a decisive epistemic shift in the modern understanding of the self. Within Foucault’s framework, psychoanalysis appears as part of the dispositive of sexuality through which power gains access to the most intimate regions of subjectivity. The paper traces how this configuration transforms ancient practices of emotional regulation into modern techniques of governance, revealing the continuity between cathartic purification, psychoanalytic introspection, and disciplinary control. This work situates psychoanalysis within Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary power, revealing how late 19th and 20th century therapeutic models employed sexuality to shape subjectivity. Freud’s work, while advancing therapeutic insights, became entangled with mechanisms of social regulation by framing the unconscious through sexual norms. Foucault’s critique positions sexuality as a strategic tool for controlling desires, norms, and subjectivities. This paper critiques how emotional regulation, subjectivity and discipline intersect by analyzing the interplay between tragic catharsis, psychoanalytic theory, and Foucault’s concept of sexuality as a power mechanism. It provides philosophical insights into the historical reconfiguration of identity and the use of sexuality as a tool for social governance.