Oedipus complex: what is it?

The Oedipus Complex: one of the most controversial concepts in Freud's theory

The Oedipus Complex is a term he used Sigmund Freud in its Theory of the Stages of Psychosexual Development to describe the feeling of desire of a child for his mother and hatred for the father. This hatred is due to the fact that the child perceives that her father is a competitor for the affection of the mother, and expresses her feelings in the form of anger, tantrums and disobedient behaviors.

Freud first proposed the Oedipus Complex in 1899 in his book Dream interpretation, but he didn't start using it formally until 1910. The name was born after being inspired by Oedipus, a character from Greek mythology who accidentally killed her father.

Sigmund Freud's Psychosexual Theory

At the time that Freud lived there was a strong repression of sexual desires. The Austrian psychoanalyst understood that there was a relationship between neurosis and sexual repression. Therefore, it was possible to understand the nature and variety of the disease by knowing the sexual history of the patient.

Freud considered that children are born with a sexual desire that they must satisfy, and that there are a series of stages, during which the child seeks pleasure through different objects. This is what led her to the most controversial part of his theory: the theory of psychosexual development.

Phallic stage and Oedipus complex

According to Freud, there are various stages of the infant's psychosexual development, and the Oedipus Complex occurs during Phallic stage: important moment for the development of sexual identity.

This phase takes place from the age of three and lasts until six. The genitals They are the object of pleasure, and interest in sexual differences and genitalia appears, so it is of the utmost importance the non-repression of this desire and the correct management of this stage, since it could obstruct the capacity of investigation, knowledge and general learning of the boy.

Freud affirms that male children experience sexual desires towards their mothers and see their fathers as rivals, so they fear being castrated, a process that results in the Oedipus Complex. Later, children identify with their fathers and repress their feelings towards their mothers to leave this phase behind. The correct assimilation of this stage has as a consequence the maturity of the sexual identity.

The concept of the Oedipus Complex only refers to boys, since in girls it is called Electra Complex.

Overcoming the Oedipus Complex

For the correct development towards an adult with a healthy identity, the child must identify with the same sex as the parent. Freud suggests that while the IT wants to eliminate the father, the EGO he knows that his father is much stronger. The child then experiences what is known as castration anxiety, fear of emasculation. As the child becomes aware of the physical differences between men and women, he assumes that in women the penis has been removed, so his father can castrate him as punishment for lusting after his mother.

Many are the criticisms that Freud has received for the concept of the Oedipus Complex, even from within the world of psychoanalysis itself.