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

The Oedipus Complex is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his Theory of the Stages of Psychosexual Development to describe a child’s feeling of desire for his mother and hatred of his father . This hatred is due to the child perceiving his father as a competitor for the mother’s affection, and expressing his feelings in the form of anger, temper tantrums and disobedient behaviour.

Freud first proposed the Oedipus Complex in 1899 in his book Interpretation of Dreams , but he did not start to use it formally until 1910. The name was born after being inspired by Oedipus, a character from Greek mythology who accidentally killed his father.

The Psychosexual Theory of Sigmund Freud

At the time when 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 illness by knowing the sexual history of the patient.

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

Phallic stage and Oedipus complex

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

This phase starts at the age of three and lasts until the age of six. The genitals are the object of pleasure, and interest in sexual differences and genitals appears, so it is of the utmost importance not to repress this desire and the correct management of this stage, as it could obstruct the child’s capacity for research, knowledge and general learning.

Freud claims 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 feelings towards their mothers to leave this phase behind. The correct assimilation of this stage results in 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 his or her parent . Freud suggests that while ELLO wants to eliminate the parent, EGO knows that his father is much stronger. So, the child experiences what is known as castration anxiety , fear of emasculation. As the boy becomes aware of the physical differences between men and women, he assumes that in women the penis has been removed, so his father may castrate him as punishment for desiring 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.