Sigmund Freud, one of the founding figures of psychoanalysis, tried to uncover the unconscious at the center of the Oedipus complex in order to analyze human behavior and attitudes, resulting in the view that the human ego or personality structure is shaped within the framework of mother-father relationships. Among Freud’s students who acted on this view but had different approaches were psychoanalysts such as Alfred Adler, Carl Gustav Jung, Sandor Ferenczi and Otto Rank. Among these students, Otto Rank’s (1884-1939) book Birth Trauma (1924), which he wrote in order to relate the feelings of distress, anxiety, unhappiness, longing and the desire to die that humans experience in the world to the moment of birth, led to his departure from Freud’s ideas. While Freud associated human behavior with childhood, Otto Rank emphasized the human’s life in the womb, which is a safe and protected place before coming into the world, and the disruption of this life with the moment of birth. For Rank, a person's search for solace in a quiet and peaceful place or object evokes a longing for the mother's womb. The birth trauma suggested by Otto Rank has made many works of art visible to be examined at this point. It is possible to see the traces of birth trauma and the reflection of the desire to return to the mother's womb in order to escape this trauma in both the life and poems of Tevfik Fikret (1867-1915), one of the Servet-i Fünûn artists. Fikret, who lost his mother at the age of twelve, presents his need for refuge by decorating a room in their house according to his own taste and staying there for a long time while he was still a child. Tevfik Fikret's desire to seek refuge in space, which is a way of revealing his escape from people and his preference for solitude, presents a concrete appearance in his house, which he named Aşiyan in his later years. Aşiyan, which he drew by hand and thought about in every detail, can be interpreted as a reflection of his desire to return to his mother. In this study, Fikret's revealing of his longing for his mother's womb is revealed by his turning to certain objects in nature and constructing imaginary places in his poems.
Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Otto Rank, Birth Trauma, Poetry, Tevfik Fikret.