Oedipus complex

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Oedipus describes the riddle of the Sphinx, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, (ca. 1805).

In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrates upon a child's desire to sexually possess the parent of the opposite sex (e.g. males attracted to their mothers, whereas females are attracted to their fathers).[1][2] Sigmund Freud, who coined the term "Oedipus complex" believed that the Oedipus complex is a desire for the parent in both males and females; Freud deprecated the term "Electra complex", which was introduced by Carl Gustav Jung in regard to the Oedipus complex manifested in young girls. The Oedipus complex occurs in the third — phallic stage (ages 3–6) — of the five psychosexual development stages: (i) the oral, (ii) the anal, (iii) the phallic, (iv) the latent, and (v) the genital — in which the source of libidinal pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant's body.



The psychologist Sigmund Freud (at age 16) with his adored mother in 1872.[3]

Oedipus refers to a 5th-century BC Greek mythlogic character Oedipus, who unwittingly kills his father, Laius, and marries his mother, Jocasta. A play based on the myth, Oedipus Rex, was written by Sophocles, ca. 429 BC.

Modern productions of Sophocles' play were staged in Paris and Vienna in the 19th century and were phenomenally successful in the 1880s and 1890s. The Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), attended. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams first published in 1899, he proposed that an Oedipal desire is a universal, psychological phenomenon innate (phylogenetic) to human beings, and the cause of much unconscious guilt. He based this on his analysis of his feelings attending the play, his anecdotal observations of neurotic or normal children, and on the fact that the Oedipal Rex play was effective on both ancient and modern audiences (he also claimed the play Hamlet was effective for the same reason).[4]

Freud described the man Oedipus:




The Oedipus complex[edit]

Oedipus and the Sphinx, by Gustave Moreau, (1864)


In the phallic stage, a boy's decisive psychosexual experience is the Oedipus complex — his son–father competition for possession of mother. It is in this third stage of psychosexual development that the child's genitalia are his or her primary erogenous zone; thus, when children become aware of their bodies, the bodies of other children, and the bodies of their parents, they gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring themselves, each other, and their genitals, so learning the anatomic differences between "male" and "female" and the gender differences between "boy" and "girl".


Psycho-logic defense — In both sexes, defense mechanisms provide transitory resolutions of the conflict between the drives of the id and the drives of the ego. The first defense mechanism is repression, the blocking of memories, emotional impulses, and ideas from the conscious mind; yet its action does not resolve the id–ego conflict. The second defense mechanism is identification, by which the child incorporates, to his or her (super)ego, the personality characteristics of the same-sex parent; in so adapting, the boy diminishes his castration anxiety, because his likeness to father protects him from father's wrath in their maternal rivalry; by so adapting, the girl facilitates identifying with mother, who understands that, in being females, neither of them possesses a penis, and thus are not antagonists.[9]

Dénouement — Unresolved son–father competition for the psycho-sexual possession mother might result in a phallic stage fixation conducive to a boy becoming an aggressive, over-ambitious, vain man. Therefore, the satisfactory parental handling and resolution of the Oedipus complex are most important in developing the male infantile super-ego, because, by identifying with a parent, the boy internalizes Morality, thereby, he chooses to comply with societal rules, rather than reflexively complying in fear of punishment.

Oedipal case study[edit]



Feminine Oedipus attitude[edit]

Initially, Freud equally applied the Oedipus complex to the psychosexual development of boys and girls, but later modified the female aspects of the theory as "feminine Oedipus attitude" and "negative Oedipus complex";[11] yet, it was his student–collaborator Carl Jung, who, in 1913, proposed the Electra complex to describe a girl's daughter–mother competition for psychosexual possession of the father.[12]

In the phallic stage, a girl's Electra complex is her decisive psychodynamic experience in forming a discrete sexual identity (ego). Whereas a boy develops castration anxiety, a girl develops penis envy rooted in anatomic fact: without a penis, she cannot sexually possess mother, as the infantile id demands. Resultantly, the girl redirects her desire for sexual union upon father, thus progressing to heterosexual femininity, which culminates in bearing a child, who replaces the absent penis.[13] Furthermore, after the phallic stage, the girl's psychosexual development includes transferring her primary erogenous zone from the infantile clitoris to the adult vagina.


Freudian theoretic revision[edit]

When Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) proposed that the Oedipus complex was psychologically universal, he provoked the evolution of Freudian psychology and the psychoanalytic treatment method, by collaborator and competitor alike.

Carl Jung[edit]

The Electra complex: the matricides Electra and Orestes.

In countering Freud's proposal that the psychosexual development of boys and girls is equal, that each initially experiences sexual desire (libido) for mother, and aggression towards father, student–collaborator Carl Jung counter-proposed that girls experienced desire for father and aggression towards mother via the Electra complex — derived from the 5th-century BC Greek mythologic character Electra, who plotted matricidal revenge with Orestes, her brother, against Clytemnestra, their mother, and Aegisthus, their stepfather, for their murder of Agamemnon, her father, (cf. Electra, by Sophocles).[15][16][17] Moreover, because it is native to Freudian psychology, orthodox Jungian psychology uses the term "Oedipus complex" only to denote a boy's psychosexual development.

Otto Rank[edit]

Oedipus complex: Otto Rank behind Sigmund Freud, and other psychoanalysts (1922).


Melanie Klein[edit]

Whereas Freud proposed that father (the paternal phallus) was central to infantile and adult psychosexual development, Melanie Klein concentrated upon the early maternal relationship, proposing that Oedipal manifestations are perceptible in the first year of life, the oral stage. Her proposal was part of the Controversial discussions (1942–44) at the British Psychoanalytical Association. The Kleinian psychologists proposed that "underlying the Oedipus complex, as Freud described it . . . there is an earlier layer of more primitive relationships with the Oedipal couple".[18] Moreover, Klein's work lessened the central role of the Oedipus complex, with the concept of the depressive position.[19][20]

Wilfred Bion[edit]

Wilfred Bion (1916)

"For the post–Kleinian Bion, the myth of Oedipus concerns investigatory curiosity — the quest for knowledge — rather than sexual difference; the other main character in the Oedipal drama becomes Tiresias (the false hypothesis erected against anxiety about a new theory)".[21] Resultantly, "Bion regarded the central crime of Oedipus as his insistence on knowing the truth at all costs".[22]

Jacques Lacan[edit]


Thus "a child learns what power independent of itself is as it goes through the Oedipus complex . . . encountering the existence of a symbolic system independent of itself".[24] Moreover, Lacan's proposal that "the ternary relation of the Oedipus complex" liberates the "prisoner of the dual relationship" of the son–mother relationship proved useful to later psychoanalysts;[25] thus, for Bollas, the "achievement" of the Oedipus complex is that the "child comes to understand something about the oddity of possessing one's own mind . . . discovers the multiplicity of points of view".[26] Likewise, for Ronald Britton, "if the link between the parents perceived in love and hate can be tolerated in the child's mind . . . this provides us with a capacity for seeing us in interaction with others, and . . . for reflecting on ourselves, whilst being ourselves".[27] As such, in The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes (2000), Michael Parsons proposed that such a perspective permits viewing "the Oedipus complex as a life-long developmental challenge . . . [with] new kinds of Oedipal configurations that belong to later life".[28]



Certain contemporary psychoanalysts agree with the idea of the Oedipus complex to different degrees; Hans Keller proposed it is so "at least in Western societies";[34] and others consider that ethnologists already have established its temporal and geographic universality.[35] Nonetheless, few psychoanalysts disagree that the "child then entered an Oedipal phase . . . [which] involved an acute awareness of a complicated triangle involving mother, father, and child" and that "both positive and negative Oedipal themes are typically observable in development".[36] Despite evidence of parent–child conflict, the evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson note that it is not for sexual possession of the opposite sex-parent; thus, in Homicide (1988), they proposed that the Oedipus complex yields few testable predictions, because they found no evidence of the Oedipus complex in people.[37]

In No More Silly Love Songs: A Realist's Guide to Romance (2010), Anouchka Grose says that "a large number of people, these days believe that Freud's Oedipus complex is defunct . . . 'disproven', or simply found unnecessary, sometime in the last century".[38] Moreover, from the post-modern perspective, Grose contends that "the Oedipus complex isn't really like that. It's more a way of explaining how human beings are socialised . . . learning to deal with disappointment".[38] The elementary understanding being that "You have to stop trying to be everything for your primary career, and get on with being something for the rest of the world".[39] Nonetheless, the open question remains whether or not such a post–Lacanian interpretation "stretches the Oedipus complex to a point where it almost doesn't look like Freud's any more".[38]

Parent-child and sibling-sibling incestuous unions are almost universally forbidden.[40] An explanation for this incest taboo is that rather than instinctual sexual desire there is instinctual sexual aversion against these unions (See Westermarck effect). Steven Pinker wrote that "The idea that boys want to sleep with their mothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard. Obviously, it did not seem so to Freud, who wrote that as a boy he once had an erotic reaction to watching his mother dressing. But Freud had a wet-nurse, and may not have experienced the early intimacy that would have tipped off his perceptual system that Mrs. Freud was his mother."

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Charles Rycroft A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (London, 2nd Ed. 1995)
  2. ^ a b Joseph Childers, Gary Hentzi eds. Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995)
  3. ^ Peter Gay (1995) Freud: A Life for Our Time
  4. ^ Oedipus as Evidence: The Theatrical Background to Freud's Oedipus Complex by Richard Armstrong, 1999
  11. ^ Freud, Sigmund (1956). On Sexuality. Penguin Books Ltd. 
  12. ^ http://www.credoreference.com.library.capella.edu/entry/routgermanlit/sigmund_freud_1856_1939
  13. ^ Appignanesisi & Forrester (1992)
  18. ^ Richard Appignanesi ed. Introducing Melanie Klein (Cambridge 2006) p. 173
  21. ^ Mary Jacobus, The Poetics of Psychoanalysis (London 2005) p. 259
  25. ^ Jacques Lacan, Ecrits pp. 218, 182
  26. ^ Adam Phillips On Flirtation (London 1994) p. 159
  29. ^ Freud, Sexuality pp. 149-50nn
  34. ^ Hans Keller: 1975: 1984 Minus 9 (London, 1975)
  38. ^ a b c Anouchka Grose No More Silly Love Songs (London, 2010) p. 123