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Drawing on Odysseus’ strategy of simulating madness in order to save Telemachus, his child who was still a baby, Kohut attempts “to undermine the power of the myth that has supported Freud’s concept” and substitutes an Odysseusian paradigm for the oedipal paradigm. In so doing, he seeks to minimize the theoretical importance of the conflict of the generations and to place emphasis instead on that of continuity in filiation. However, according to Greek mythology, the posterity of Odysseus is remarkably… oedipal. In my view, Kohut, in spite of himself, demonstrates the conflict of the generations – his conflict with Freud – and the ubiquity and power of the Oedipus complex.