Incest: A Synthesis of Data
Authors: Henderson D. James 
Published: April 2017

The incest taboo is a moral imperative; its force reflects a cross-cultural preoccupation with the incest theme. The importance of this subject in psychiatric theory and practice justifies a concerted effort to synthesize the available data into a coherent overview, drawing on the findings of a variety of relevant disciplines.

Epidemiologists have shown that almost all civilizations recognize incest, but that it is universally uncommon. The influence of sociocultural and socioeconomic variables upon the occurrence of incest is disputed, partly because of the contamination of data due to unfortunate study designs. A glance at the classical literature shows that incest is an ever-recurring theme of mythologies of many civilizations. Anthropologists have pointed out cross-cultural variations in the nature of the incest taboo but have generally substantiated its universal presence in some form.

The incest theme is an appealing area for theorists. The incest taboo is multi-determined. Freud spoke of the need to prevent the destruction of society by a band of brothers who would murder the tyrannical father, then mutilate the social order through a chain of ‘fraternal’ wars. However a variety of biological, psychological and social theories have been carefully and thoughtfully articulated to explain the incest taboo and man's pervasive preoccupation with this theme.

The occurrence of overt incest is usually in the setting of a dysfunctional family and is accompanied by drastic role shifts so far-reaching as to constitute a virtual re-programming of the familial unit. Sociocultural, socioeconomic and purely psychiatric factors may play a further part in the breakdown of the incest barrier in these situations. The psychodynamics of incest can best be conceptualized within the framework of a three-generational schema, with desertion anxiety being a recurrent theme. For example, in father-daughter incest the mother deals with desertion anxiety stemming from the maternal grandmother by casting an older daughter in the role of homemaker and sexual partner to her husband. Overt incest is but the top of the proverbial ‘ice-berg’. Incestuous behaviour appears deeply rooted in the pre-œdipal period.

Incestuous fathers have usually been rejected recently by their usual sexual partners, and they deal with the guilt arising from incestuous behaviour with flagrant and sometimes naive rationalizations. Their backgrounds are usually marginal. The wives of incestuous men collude with the incestuous liaison by rejecting their husbands sexually and by subtly encouraging their daughters to become the ‘woman of the home’. Incestuous daughters are generally felt to encourage their fathers' sexual advances or at least to refrain from resisting them. Incestuous behaviour in daughters is at least in part a function of hostile impulses toward the mother and a penis envy hypertrophied by the wish for revenge against the pre-œdipal mother.

In father-daughter incest, youth in the daughter and a relative absence of anxiety and guilt in the incestuous father or colluding mother are factors leading to a favourable prognosis, and the converse is also true.

Prevention of overt incest rests on measures to enhance the definitions of the social role and generational boundaries within the family and upon devices which serve to buttress the incest taboo. Insight psychotherapy may play a part in the treatment of discovered cases and family therapy with the aim of promoting a healthier role allocation in the dysfunctional family has proven helpful.