OEDIPUS & ELECTRA COMPLEX

• Oedipus Complex:

  • Occurs during the Phallic Stage
  • Boy develops unconscious sexual (pleasurable) desires for his mother
  • Envy & Jealousy at the father (fantasies of getting rid of his father & taking his place with the mother, castration anxiety)
  • Later identification with father: Masculine gender identity (father is a role model rather than rival)
  • Boy- substitutes his desire for his mother for other women
• Electra Complex:

  • Occurs during the Phallic Stage
  • Girl becomes unconsciously sexually attached to her father & is hostile towards mother
  • Belief that she has already been castrated (blames mother, penis envy)
  • Girl struggles to identify with her mother (struggles to give up father as a love object) so identification is less complete than with boys and their fathers
  • Makes female superego weaker, identity as separate, independent persons is less well developed
  • Freud said that women are “failed men”