the Oedipus complex

• The Oedipus complex

  • All young boys experience this conflict

  • They develop a passionate desire to have sex with their mother
• They want to possess their mother for themselves

  • They see their father as rival ⇒ experience jealousy and therefore wishes father dead
• • They are afraid their father will discover their desire for their mother and punish them by removing their genitals and "source of power": castration anxiety

  • They recognise that their father is more powerful than them as he has a bigger penis
• • The child believes his father has castrated his mother
• • In summary, conflict between lust for mother and fear of father