Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Austria to Jewish parents during a time of economic and political strife. His parents had always placed high importance upon education, and as a result, Freud focused a great deal of time on his studies, becoming an excellent student. After earning a medical degree, he became fascinated with the human psyche, particularly emphasizing the developmental stages of human sexuality.
The Oedipus Complex theory developed its name from the play Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles in Ancient Greece. The plot involves Oedipus being sent away as an infant because he was destined to kill his father. Not knowing who his biological parents were, he ends up slaying his father after an argument and because of his pride. He had sexual relations with his mother, unknowingly, and when their true identities are revealed, she hangs herself, and he blinds himself with a pin on her dress.
A major part of Sigmund Freud’s theory comes from displacement of repressed fears or desires that are not fully explored. Freud studied a five year old boy named Hans who, he had concluded, wanted to have sexual relations with his mother. Because of the wrongfulness he felt in expressing this suppressed love, he became afraid of many things around him, to compensate for the sexual feelings that were not returned to him. Children at this age, of course, do not realize they are doing this, so it is the subconscious at work that begins breeding these irrational fears within the psyche.
Sigmund Freud has highlighted all of the stages of psychosexual development, which is magnified in boys as opposed to girls. They enter into phases in which they must shift emotions and attachment to objects, and some eventually develop feelings for their mothers, stemming from oral fixations at a young age. As an infant, it soon “comes to appreciate its mother as the first external love object” (Britannica 2007).
There becomes a conflict within the individual, which is the pinnacle and turning point in the Oedipus Complex. The boy begins to resent his feelings for his mother, and often struggles with being the man of the house over the father. If there is no father figure, then the boy’s role in the home becomes even more confusing, and the bond is extremely hard to break when the son eventually leaves the home. However, if there is a father figure, there are often feelings of guilt between father and son, but more often than not, Freud notes that there are certainly unexpressed feelings of hate toward the father, and unusual love for the mother.
Another arbitrary aspect of the Oedipus Complex involves female sexuality. Freud does not account for a girl’s love for her mother in his studies, but more suggests that, in sexual development, women grow to actually resent men. That is not to say that women hate men, but more suffer from penis envy for a good portion of their lives. He “had a problem conceptualizing female sexuality,” going so far as to believe that women really felt like castrated males, instead of embracing their own femininity and genitalia (Morgenstern 2003). This shows that the majority of Freud’s studies center around how men face sexuality and their inner struggles, rather than extending the research to both sexes.
Some critics of Freud’s theories have suggested that his research is nothing more than a mere retelling of an age old story with no basis of truth. Other research has indicated that Freud also studied the reverse aspect of the Oedipus Complex, in which the boy has a great deal of affection for the father, and abhorrence for the mother. In this case, the boy would exhibit a great deal of chauvinistic behavior, and feel a coldness toward most women.
Usually, it has been found that those suffering from a strong sense of the Oedipal Complex tend to seek mates that possess characteristics of their mothers. The comfort level that they feel from that affection is unlikely to subside, and rather than giving into those repressed subconscious desires to actually pursue something with the mother, they find a substitute instead. This would constitute the concept of transference, which “is the reenactment of childhood urges cathected (invested) on a new object” (Britannica 2007). For those that never fully mature from this lost state of childhood, that ‘object’ becomes another person who can fulfill the needs that have not fully been realized, or maybe have been realized too much, by the boy and his mother.
The work of Sigmund Freud is still greatly discussed in modern society, because of the amount of emphasis he placed upon urges and our quest to find a healthy sense of sexuality in our lives. Whether disputed or revered, the Oedipus Complex remains one of the most talked about theories in psychology.
References
Mortensen, N. (2003). University of Toronto Quarterly, 72(4), 777-788. Retrieved
November 26, 2007 from Academic Search Premier.
“Sigmund Freud”. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 21, 2007,
from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com/eb/article-22605.
Charles Carlini is the founder of www.SimplyCharly.com, an educational suite of websites for students and teachers that brings to life, in a compelling and engaging manner, some of the world's most prominent historical figures.
Article Source: Understanding Freud’s Oedipus Complex
