Difference between revisions of "Oedipus complex"

From No Subject - Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 5: Line 5:
 
=====Sigmund Freud=====
 
=====Sigmund Freud=====
  
The [[Oedipus complex]] is a concept used by [[Freud]] in his theory of the [[sexual difference|psychosexual stages]] of [[childhood]] [[development]].
+
=====''Oedipus Rex''=====
 +
The term was named after the character in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex who accidentally kills his father and marries his mother.
 +
 
 +
=====Early Work=====
 +
In a letter to [[FLiess]] dated 17 October 1897, Freud remarks that [[Sophocles]]'s ''[[Oedipus Rex]]'' has such "gripping power" because being in love with one's [[mother]] and jealous of one's [[father]] is "a universal event in early childhood."<ref>{{F}} 1985.</ref>
 +
 
 +
The "[[Oedipus complex]]" is first introduced by [[Freud]] in 1901; it comes to acquire central importance in [[psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic theory]] thereafter.
  
 +
=====Unconscious Desire=====
 
The [[Oedipus complex]] is a concept used by [[Freud]] to describe the [[unconscious]] ([[sexual difference|sexual]]) [[desire]] of the [[child]] -- especially the [[male]] [[child]] --  for the parent of the opposite sex, and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex.
 
The [[Oedipus complex]] is a concept used by [[Freud]] to describe the [[unconscious]] ([[sexual difference|sexual]]) [[desire]] of the [[child]] -- especially the [[male]] [[child]] --  for the parent of the opposite sex, and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex.
 +
 +
The "[[Oedipus complex]]" is a term developed by Sigmund Freud to designate the attraction on the part of the child toward the parent of the opposite sex and rivalry and hostility toward the parent of its own.
 +
  
 
=====Psychosexual Development=====
 
=====Psychosexual Development=====
 +
 +
The [[Oedipus complex]] is a concept used by [[Freud]] in his theory of the [[sexual difference|psychosexual stages]] of [[childhood]] [[development]].
 
The [[Oedipus complex]] is absolutely central to [[Freud]]'s theory of the [[sexual difference|psychosexual stages]] of [[childhood]] [[development]].
 
The [[Oedipus complex]] is absolutely central to [[Freud]]'s theory of the [[sexual difference|psychosexual stages]] of [[childhood]] [[development]].
  
Line 17: Line 29:
  
  
=====''Oedipus Rex''=====
 
The term was named after the character in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex who accidentally kills his father and marries his mother.
 
  
  
  
=====Early Work=====
+
 
In a letter to [[FLiess]] dated 17 October 1897, Freud remarks that [[Sophocles]]'s ''[[Oedipus Rex]]'' has such "gripping power" because being in love with one's [[mother]] and jealous of one's [[father]] is "a universal event in early childhood."<ref>{{F}} 1985.</ref>
 
  
  
Line 49: Line 58:
  
  
 +
 +
=====''Oedipus Rex''=====
 +
The Oedipus complex is named after the mythical Oedipus, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
 +
 +
It comes from the Greek myth of Oedipus, a Greek hero who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother.
 +
 +
The term derives from ''[[Oedipus]]'' was a prominent figure in Greek mythology who killed his father and married his mother.
 +
 +
[[Freud]] attributes the "gripping power" of [[Sophocles]]' play, ''[[Oedipus Rex]]'' to its depiction of what [[Freud]] considers a "universal event in early childhood."
 +
 +
=====Phallic Stage=====
 +
The [[Oedipus complex]] coincides with the [[phallic stage]] of [[development|psychosexual development]], dur
 +
 +
ing which the primary erogenous zone of the body consists of the genital sex organs.
 +
when awareness of and manipulation of the genitals is supposed to be a primary source of pleasure
 +
during which a child becomes interested in his or her own sexual organs
 +
 +
The Oedipus conflict, or Oedipus complex, was described as a state of psychosexual development and awareness first occurring around the age of 5 and a half years (a period known as the phallic stage in Freudian theory).
 +
 +
Freud came to assume that, by the time he has reached the ‘phallic’ stage of development, at around the age of four or five, the small boy is sexually interested in his mother, wishes to gain exclusive possession of her, and therefore harbours hostile impulses towards his father.
 +
 +
=====Psychosexual Development=====
 +
 +
The "[[Oedipus complex]]" was posited by [[Sigmund Freud]] as the central organizing principle of psychosexual development.
 +
 +
rucial stage in the normal developmental process.
 +
 +
The [[Oedipus complex]] emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year, when the child renounces [[desire|sexual desire]] for its parents and identifies with the rival.
 +
 +
It occurs during the phallic stage of the psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five.
 +
=====Unconscious Desire=====
 +
 +
The [[Oedipus complex]] was defined by [[Freud]] as an [[unconscious]] set of loving and hostile [[desire]]s which the [[subject]] experiences in relation to its parents; the [[subject]] [[desire]]s one parent, and thus enters into rivalry with the other parent.
 +
 +
In the "positive" form of the [[Oedipus complex]], the [[desire]]d parent is the parent of the opposite sex to the [[subject]], and the parent of the same sex is the rival.
 +
 +
UNIVERSAL
 +
Followers of the psychologist Sigmund Freud long believed that the Oedipus complex was common to all cultures, although many psychiatrists now refute this belief.
 +
 +
=====Castration Complex=====
 +
The hostility towards the father arouses the fear that the father will remove the offending sex organ of the boy, called [[castration anxiety]].
 +
 +
The [[castration complex]] arises from the  boy's assumption that, because girls are without a penis, they must have suffered castration.
 +
 +
The reality of castration is borught home to the boy when he sees the sexual anatomy of the girl, which is lacking the protruding genitals of the male.
 +
 +
The girl appears castrated to the boy. "If that could happen to her, it could also happen to me," is what he thinks.
 +
 +
As a result of castration anxiety, the boy represses his incestuous desire for the mother an his hostility for the father, and the Oedipus complex disappears.
 +
 +
=====Psychopathology=====
 +
The Oedipus complex or conflict is a concept developed by Sigmund Freud to explain the origin of certain neuroses in childhood
 +
 +
 +
[[Freud]] argued that all psychopathological [[structure]]s could be traced to a malfunction in the [[Oedipus complex]], which was thus dubbed "the nuclear complex of the neuroses".
 +
 +
The Oedipus complex is closely connected to the castration complex.
 +
 +
 +
Resolution of the Oedipus complex is believed to occur by identification with the parent of the same sex and by the renunciation of sexual interest in the parent of the opposite sex. Freud considered this complex the cornerstone of the superego and the nucleus of all human relationships.
 +
 +
=====Jacques Lacan=====
 +
 +
[[Lacan]] first addresses the [[Oedipus complex]] in his 1938 article on the [[family complexes|family]], where he argues that it is the last and most important of the three "family complexes."
 +
 +
At this point his account of the [[Oedipus complex]] does not differ from [[Freud]]'s, his only originality being to emphasise its historical and cultural relativity, taking his cue from the anthropological studies by Malinowski and others.<ref>{{L}} 1938: 66</ref>
 +
 +
------------
 +
 +
It is in the 1950s that [[Lacan]] begins to develop his own distinctive conception of the [[Oedipus complex]].
 +
 +
Though he always follows [[Freud]] in regarding the [[Oedipus complex]] as the central complex in the [[unconscious]], he now begins to differ from [[Freud]] on a number of important points.
 +
 +
The most important of these is that in [[Lacan]]'s view, the [[subject]] always desires the [[mother]], and the [[father]] is always the rival, irrespective of whether the [[subject]] is [[male]] or [[female]].
 +
 +
Consequently, in [[Lacan]]'s account the [[male]] [[subject]] experiences the [[Oedipus complex]] in a radically asymmetrical way to the [[female]] [[subject]].
 +
 +
------------
 +
 +
The [[Oedipus complex]] is, for [[Lacan]], the paradigmatic triangular [[structure]], which contrasts with all [[dual relation]]s (though see the final paragraph below).
 +
 +
The key function in the [[Oedipus complex]] is thus that of the [[father]], the third term which transforms the [[dual relation]] between [[mother]] and [[child]] into a [[triad]]ic [[structure]].
 +
 +
The [[Oedipus complex]] is thus nothing less than the passage from the [[imaginary]] [[order]] to the [[symbolic order]], "the conquest of the symbolic relation as such."<ref>{{S3}} p.199</ref>
 +
 +
The fact that the passage to the [[symbolic]] passes via a complex sexual [[dialectic]] means that the [[subject]] cannot have access to the [[symbolic order]] without confronting the problem of [[sexual difference]].
 +
 +
----------------
 +
 +
In ''[[Seminar|The Seminar, Book V]]'', [[Lacan]] analyses this passage from the [[imaginary]] to the [[symbolic]] by [[identification|identifying]] three "times" of the [[Oedipus complex]], the sequence being one of logical rather than chronological priority.<ref>{{L}} 1957-8: [[seminar]] of 22 January 1958</ref>
 +
 +
------------
 +
 +
The first time of the [[Oedipus complex]] is characterised by the [[imaginary]] [[triangle]] of [[mother]], [[child]] and [[phallus]].
 +
 +
In the previous [[seminar]] of 1956-7, [[Lacan]] calls this the [[preoedipal]] [[triangle]].
 +
 +
However, whether this [[triangle]] is regarded as [[preoedipal]] or as a moment in the [[Oedipus complex]] itself, the main point is the same: namely, that prior to the invention of the [[father]] there is never a purely [[dual relation]] between the [[mother]] and the [[child]] but always a third term, the [[phallus]], an [[imaginary]] [[object]] which the [[mother]] [[desire]]s beyond the [[child]] himself (S4, 240-1).
 +
 +
[[Lacan]] hints that the presence of the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] as a third term in the [[imaginary]] [[triangle]] indicates that the [[symbolic]] [[father]] is already functioning at this time.<ref>{{L}} 1957-8: [[seminar]] of 22 January 1958</ref>
 +
 +
------------
 +
 +
In the first time of the [[Oedipus complex]], then, the [[child]] realises that both he and the [[mother]] are marked by a [[lack]].
 +
 +
The [[mother]] is marked by [[lack]], since she is seen to be incomplete; otherwise, she would not [[desire]].
 +
 +
The [[subject]] is also marked by a [[lack]], since he does not completely [[satisfy]] the [[mother]]'s [[desire]].
 +
 +
The [[lack]]ing element in both cases is the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]].
 +
 +
The [[mother]] [[desire]]s the [[phallus]] she [[lack]]s, and (in conformity with [[Hegel]]'s theory of [[desire]]) the [[subject]] seeks to become the [[object]] of her [[desire]]; he seeks to be the [[phallus]] for the [[mother]] and fill out her [[lack]].
 +
 +
At this point, the [[mother]] is omnipotent and her [[desire]] is the [[law]].
 +
 +
Although this omnipotence may be seen as threatening from the very beginning, the sense of threat is intensified when the [[child]]'s own sexual [[drive]]s begin to manifest themselves (for example in infantile masturba­tion).
 +
 +
This emergence of the [[real]] of the [[drive]] introduces a discordant note of [[anxiety]] into the previously seductive [[imaginary]] [[triangle]].<ref>{{S4}} p.225-6</ref>
 +
 +
The [[child]] is now confronted with the realisation that he cannot simply fool the [[mother]]'s [[desire]] with the [[imaginary]] [[semblance]] of a [[phallus]] -- he must present something in the [[real]].
 +
 +
Yet the [[child]]'s real organ (whether boy or girl) is hopelessly inadequate.
 +
 +
This sense of inadequacy and impotence in the face of an omnipotent maternal [[desire]] that cannot be placated gives rise to [[anxiety]].
 +
 +
Only the intervention of the [[father]] in the subsequent times of the [[Oedipus complex]] can provide a real solution to this [[anxiety]].
 +
 +
------------
 +
 +
The second 'time' of the [[Oedipus complex]] is characterised by the interven­tion of the [[imaginary]] [[father]].
 +
 +
The [[father]] imposes the [[law]] on the [[mother]]'s [[desire]] by denying her access to the [[phallic]] [[object]] and forbidding the [[subject]] access to the [[mother]].
 +
 +
[[Lacan]] often refers to this intervention as the "[[castration]]" of the [[mother]], even though he states that, properly speaking, the operation is not one of [[castration]] but of [[privation]].
 +
 +
This intervention is mediated by the [[discourse]] of the [[mother]]; in other words, what is important is not that the [[real]] [[father]] step in and impose the [[law]], but that this [[law]] be respected by the [[mother]] herself in both her words and her actions.
 +
 +
The [[subject]] now sees the [[father]] as a rival for the [[mother]]'s [[desire]].
 +
 +
-------------
 +
 +
The third 'time' of the [[Oedipus complex]] is marked by the intervention of the [[real]] [[father]].
 +
 +
By showing that he has the [[phallus]], and neither exchanges it nor gives it (S3, 319), the [[real]] [[father]] [[castration|castrates]] the [[child]], in the sense of making it impossible for the [[child]] to persist in trying to be the [[phallus]] for the [[mother]]; it is no use competing with the [[real]] [[father]], because he always wins.<ref>{{S4}} p.208-9, 227</ref>
 +
 +
The [[subject]] is freed from the impossible and [[anxiety]]-­provoking task of having to be the phallus by realising that the [[father]] has it.
 +
 +
This allows the [[subject]] to [[identify]] with the [[father]].
 +
 +
In this secondary ([[symbolic]]) [[identification]] the [[subject]] transcends the [[aggressivity]] inherent in primary ([[imaginary]]) [[identification]].
 +
 +
[[Lacan]] follows [[Freud]] in arguing that the [[superego]] is formed out of this [[Oedipal]] [[identification]] with the [[father]].<ref>{{S4}} p.415</ref>
 +
 +
-------------
 +
 +
Since the [[symbolic]] is the realm of the [[law]], and since the [[Oedipus complex]] is the conquest of the [[symbolic order]], it has a normative and normalising function.
 +
 +
<blockquote>"The Oedipus complex is essential for the human being to be able to accede to a humanized structure of the real."<ref>{{S3}} p.198</ref></blockquote>
 +
 +
This normative function is to be understood in reference to both [[clinic]]al [[structure]]s and the question of [[sexuality]].
 +
 +
 +
=====The Oedipus complex and clinical structures=====
 +
In accordance with [[Freud]]'s view of the [[Oedipus complex]] as the root of all psychopathology, [[Lacan]] relates all the [[clinic]]al [[structure]]s to difficulties in this [[complex]].
 +
 +
Since it is impossible to resolve the [[complex]] completely, a completely non-pathological position does not [[exist]].
 +
 +
The closest thing is a [[neurotic]] [[structure]]; the [[neurotic]] has come through all three times of the [[Oedipus complex]], and there is no such thing as a [[neurosis without [[Oedipus]].
 +
 +
On the other hand, [[psychosis]], [[perversion]] and [[phobia]] result when "something is essentially incomplete in the Oedipus complex."<ref>{{S2}} p.201</ref>
 +
 +
In [[psychosis]], there is a fundamental blockage even before the first time of the [[Oedipus complex]].
 +
 +
In [[perversion]], the [[complex]] is carried through to the third time, but instead of identifying with the father, the subject identifies with the mother and/or the imaginary phallus, thus harking back to the imaginary preoedipal triangle.
 +
 +
A phobia arises when the subject cannot make the transition from the second time of the [[Oedipus complex]] to the third time because the [[real]] [[father]] does not intervene; the [[phobia]] then functions as a substitute for the intervention of the [[real]] [[father]], thus permitting the [[subject]] to make the passage to the third time of the [[Oedipus complex]] (though often in an atypical way).
 +
 +
=====The Oedipus complex and sexuality=====
 +
It is the particular way the [[subject]] navigates his passage through the [[Oedipus complex]] that determines both his assumption of a sexual position and his choice of a sexual object (on the question of object choice<ref>{{S4}} p.201</ref>).
 +
 +
-------------
 +
 +
In his [[seminar]] of 1969-70, [[Lacan]] re-examines the [[Oedipus complex]], and analyses the [[myth]] of [[Oedipus]] as one of [[Freud]]'s [[dream]]s.<ref>{{S17}} Ch. 8</ref>
 +
 +
In this [[seminar]] (though not for the first time<ref>{{S7}}</ref>) [[Lacan]] compares the [[myth]] of [[Oedipus]] with the other [[Freud]]ian [[myth]]s (the [[myth]] of the [[father]] of the horde in ''[[Totem and Taboo]]'', and the [[myth]] of the murder of Moses<ref>{{F}} 1912-13; 1939a</ref>) and argues that the [[myth]] of ''[[Totem and Taboo]]'' is structurally opposite to the [[myth]] of [[Oedipus]].
 +
 +
In the [[myth]] of [[Oedipus]], the murder of the [[father]] allows [[Oedipus]] to enjoy sexual relations with his [[mother]], whereas in the [[myth]] of ''[[Totem and Taboo]]'' the murder of the [[father]], far from allowing access to the [[father]]'s [[women]], only reinforces the [[Law]] which forbids [[incest]].<ref>{{S7}} p.176</ref>
 +
 +
[[Lacan]] argues that in this respect the [[myth]] of ''[[Totem and Taboo]]'' is more accurate than the [[myth]] of [[Oedipus]]; the former shows that [[enjoyment]] of the [[mother ]]is impossible, whereas the latter presents [[enjoyment]] of the [[mother]] as forbidden but not impossible.
 +
 +
In the [[Oedipus complex]] a prohibition of ''[[jouissance]]'' thus serves to hide the impossibility of this ''[[jouissance]]''; the [[subject]] can thus persist in the [[neurotic]] [[illusion]] that, were it not for the [[Law]] which forbids it, ''[[jouissance]]'' would be possible.
 +
 +
-------------
 +
 +
In his reference to fourfold models, [[Lacan]] makes an implicit criticism of all triangular models of the [[Oedipus complex]].
 +
 +
Thus, though the [[Oedipus complex]] can be seen as the transition from a [[dual relation]]ship to a [[triangular]] [[structure]], [[Lacan]] argues that it is more accurately represented as the transition from a [[preoedipal]] [[triangle]] ([[mother]]-[[child]]-[[phallus]]) to an [[Oedipal]] [[quaternary]] ([[mother]]-[[child]]-[[father]]-[[phallus]]).
 +
 +
Another possibility is to see the [[Oedipus complex]] as a transition from the [[preoedipal]] [[triangle]] ([[mother]]-[[child]]-[[phallus]]) to the [[Oedipal]] [[triangle]] ([[mother]]-[[child]]-[[father]]).
 +
 +
 +
__NOTOC__
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
One of the cornerstones of the theory of [[psychoanalysis]], the idea of the [[Oedipus complex]] derives from the Greek legend that tells how [[Oedipus]] unwittingly killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta.
 +
 +
When he finally learns what he has done, he blinds himself.
 +
 +
The existence of the Oedipus complex explains the [[child]]s sexual attaction towards the parent of the opposite sex and jealously of the parent of the same sex.
 +
 +
Although the [[Oedipus complex]] is absolutely central to Freud's theory of human development, no one paper is devoted to it.
 +
 +
 +
-
 +
 +
In Lacanian terms, the [[Oedipus complex]] marks the transiiton from a dual and potentially incestuous relationship with the mother to a triadic relationship in which the role and authority of the father or the [[Name-of-the-Father]] are recognized.
 +
 +
Failure to negotiate this transition is held by all schools of psychoanalysis to be the primary cause of [neurosis]].
 +
 +
Freudians normally date the [[Oedipus complex]] to the ages of three to five years; according to [[Klein]], it occurs much earlier.
 +
 +
 +
--
 +
 +
References to the [[Oedipus complex]] can be foudn in some of [[Freud]]'s earliest writings.
 +
 +
In a letter to Fliess
 +
 +
 +
It initially refers to the boy's perception of his mother as a sexual object and of his father as a rival, but Freud's description of this 'universal phenomenon' becomes more complicated as he integrates the findings of his studies of the 'sexual theories of children.'
 +
 +
These theories are attempts to explain the phenomenon of seuxal difference, and assume the existence of a primal state in which tonly maleness exists; the fact that a girl does not hav emale genitals is therefore the result of her castration, castration being an equivalent to the blidning of Oedipus.
 +
 +
a gay may beieve that she has been castrated by a jealous mother who resents her sexual feelings for her father, whislt theboy fears that he might be castrated by a jealous father.
 +
 +
as he comes both to a ccept the reality of that threat and to identify with the father, the idssolution fo her
 +
---
 +
 +
Although Lacan follows Freud in making the [[Oedipus complec]] the curcial moment in human development, he modifies the concept in a number of ways, both by introducing the idea of a symbolic phallis which is distinct from the biologicla penis, and by mapping it onto the transition from nature to culture described by [[Levi-Strauss]].
 +
 +
A succesful negotiation of the Oedipal triangle is a preconditionfor entry into the human symbolic order.
 +
 +
 +
[[Category:Dictionary]]
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
-------------------
 +
 +
 +
==Oedipus complex==
 +
 +
 +
==Sigmund Freud==
 +
 +
 +
==Jacques Lacan==
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
==The Oedipus complex and clinical structures==
 +
 +
==The Oedipus complex and sexuality==
  
  

Revision as of 19:11, 14 September 2006

French: complexe d'Oedipe


Sigmund Freud
Oedipus Rex

The term was named after the character in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex who accidentally kills his father and marries his mother.

Early Work

In a letter to FLiess dated 17 October 1897, Freud remarks that Sophocles's Oedipus Rex has such "gripping power" because being in love with one's mother and jealous of one's father is "a universal event in early childhood."[1]

The "Oedipus complex" is first introduced by Freud in 1901; it comes to acquire central importance in psychoanalytic theory thereafter.

Unconscious Desire

The Oedipus complex is a concept used by Freud to describe the unconscious (sexual) desire of the child -- especially the male child -- for the parent of the opposite sex, and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex.

The "Oedipus complex" is a term developed by Sigmund Freud to designate the attraction on the part of the child toward the parent of the opposite sex and rivalry and hostility toward the parent of its own.


Psychosexual Development

The Oedipus complex is a concept used by Freud in his theory of the psychosexual stages of childhood development. The Oedipus complex is absolutely central to Freud's theory of the psychosexual stages of childhood development.

The Oedipus complex is the central concept in Freud's theory of the psychosexual stages of childhood development.

The Oedipus complex occurs in the phallic stage of psychosexual stages development.








=

=

=

=

According to Freud, the child must give up his sexual attraction for his mother in order to resolve this attraction and move to the next stage of psychosexual development. Failure to do so would lead the child to become fixated in this stage. Typically the Oedipus Complex refers to a boy wanting to possess his mother, while the Electra Complex refers to a girl wishing to possess her father. But don't be surprised if some refer to the Oedipus Complex for both boys and girls.

The threat of punishment from the father causes repression of these id impulses. Conflict in little boys between their love for their mothers, their jealousy of their fathers, and their fear that their fathers will punish them for loving their mothers. Girls have a similar sexual desire for the father which is repressed in analogous fashion and is called the Electra complex.


Oedipus Rex

The Oedipus complex is named after the mythical Oedipus, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.

It comes from the Greek myth of Oedipus, a Greek hero who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother.

The term derives from Oedipus was a prominent figure in Greek mythology who killed his father and married his mother.

Freud attributes the "gripping power" of Sophocles' play, Oedipus Rex to its depiction of what Freud considers a "universal event in early childhood."

Phallic Stage

The Oedipus complex coincides with the phallic stage of psychosexual development, dur

ing which the primary erogenous zone of the body consists of the genital sex organs. when awareness of and manipulation of the genitals is supposed to be a primary source of pleasure during which a child becomes interested in his or her own sexual organs

The Oedipus conflict, or Oedipus complex, was described as a state of psychosexual development and awareness first occurring around the age of 5 and a half years (a period known as the phallic stage in Freudian theory).

Freud came to assume that, by the time he has reached the ‘phallic’ stage of development, at around the age of four or five, the small boy is sexually interested in his mother, wishes to gain exclusive possession of her, and therefore harbours hostile impulses towards his father.

Psychosexual Development

The "Oedipus complex" was posited by Sigmund Freud as the central organizing principle of psychosexual development.

rucial stage in the normal developmental process.

The Oedipus complex emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year, when the child renounces sexual desire for its parents and identifies with the rival.

It occurs during the phallic stage of the psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five.

Unconscious Desire

The Oedipus complex was defined by Freud as an unconscious set of loving and hostile desires which the subject experiences in relation to its parents; the subject desires one parent, and thus enters into rivalry with the other parent.

In the "positive" form of the Oedipus complex, the desired parent is the parent of the opposite sex to the subject, and the parent of the same sex is the rival.

UNIVERSAL Followers of the psychologist Sigmund Freud long believed that the Oedipus complex was common to all cultures, although many psychiatrists now refute this belief.

Castration Complex

The hostility towards the father arouses the fear that the father will remove the offending sex organ of the boy, called castration anxiety.

The castration complex arises from the boy's assumption that, because girls are without a penis, they must have suffered castration.

The reality of castration is borught home to the boy when he sees the sexual anatomy of the girl, which is lacking the protruding genitals of the male.

The girl appears castrated to the boy. "If that could happen to her, it could also happen to me," is what he thinks.

As a result of castration anxiety, the boy represses his incestuous desire for the mother an his hostility for the father, and the Oedipus complex disappears.

Psychopathology

The Oedipus complex or conflict is a concept developed by Sigmund Freud to explain the origin of certain neuroses in childhood


Freud argued that all psychopathological structures could be traced to a malfunction in the Oedipus complex, which was thus dubbed "the nuclear complex of the neuroses".

The Oedipus complex is closely connected to the castration complex.


Resolution of the Oedipus complex is believed to occur by identification with the parent of the same sex and by the renunciation of sexual interest in the parent of the opposite sex. Freud considered this complex the cornerstone of the superego and the nucleus of all human relationships. 
Jacques Lacan

Lacan first addresses the Oedipus complex in his 1938 article on the family, where he argues that it is the last and most important of the three "family complexes."

At this point his account of the Oedipus complex does not differ from Freud's, his only originality being to emphasise its historical and cultural relativity, taking his cue from the anthropological studies by Malinowski and others.[2]


It is in the 1950s that Lacan begins to develop his own distinctive conception of the Oedipus complex.

Though he always follows Freud in regarding the Oedipus complex as the central complex in the unconscious, he now begins to differ from Freud on a number of important points.

The most important of these is that in Lacan's view, the subject always desires the mother, and the father is always the rival, irrespective of whether the subject is male or female.

Consequently, in Lacan's account the male subject experiences the Oedipus complex in a radically asymmetrical way to the female subject.


The Oedipus complex is, for Lacan, the paradigmatic triangular structure, which contrasts with all dual relations (though see the final paragraph below).

The key function in the Oedipus complex is thus that of the father, the third term which transforms the dual relation between mother and child into a triadic structure.

The Oedipus complex is thus nothing less than the passage from the imaginary order to the symbolic order, "the conquest of the symbolic relation as such."[3]

The fact that the passage to the symbolic passes via a complex sexual dialectic means that the subject cannot have access to the symbolic order without confronting the problem of sexual difference.


In The Seminar, Book V, Lacan analyses this passage from the imaginary to the symbolic by identifying three "times" of the Oedipus complex, the sequence being one of logical rather than chronological priority.[4]


The first time of the Oedipus complex is characterised by the imaginary triangle of mother, child and phallus.

In the previous seminar of 1956-7, Lacan calls this the preoedipal triangle.

However, whether this triangle is regarded as preoedipal or as a moment in the Oedipus complex itself, the main point is the same: namely, that prior to the invention of the father there is never a purely dual relation between the mother and the child but always a third term, the phallus, an imaginary object which the mother desires beyond the child himself (S4, 240-1).

Lacan hints that the presence of the imaginary phallus as a third term in the imaginary triangle indicates that the symbolic father is already functioning at this time.[5]


In the first time of the Oedipus complex, then, the child realises that both he and the mother are marked by a lack.

The mother is marked by lack, since she is seen to be incomplete; otherwise, she would not desire.

The subject is also marked by a lack, since he does not completely satisfy the mother's desire.

The lacking element in both cases is the imaginary phallus.

The mother desires the phallus she lacks, and (in conformity with Hegel's theory of desire) the subject seeks to become the object of her desire; he seeks to be the phallus for the mother and fill out her lack.

At this point, the mother is omnipotent and her desire is the law.

Although this omnipotence may be seen as threatening from the very beginning, the sense of threat is intensified when the child's own sexual drives begin to manifest themselves (for example in infantile masturba­tion).

This emergence of the real of the drive introduces a discordant note of anxiety into the previously seductive imaginary triangle.[6]

The child is now confronted with the realisation that he cannot simply fool the mother's desire with the imaginary semblance of a phallus -- he must present something in the real.

Yet the child's real organ (whether boy or girl) is hopelessly inadequate.

This sense of inadequacy and impotence in the face of an omnipotent maternal desire that cannot be placated gives rise to anxiety.

Only the intervention of the father in the subsequent times of the Oedipus complex can provide a real solution to this anxiety.


The second 'time' of the Oedipus complex is characterised by the interven­tion of the imaginary father.

The father imposes the law on the mother's desire by denying her access to the phallic object and forbidding the subject access to the mother.

Lacan often refers to this intervention as the "castration" of the mother, even though he states that, properly speaking, the operation is not one of castration but of privation.

This intervention is mediated by the discourse of the mother; in other words, what is important is not that the real father step in and impose the law, but that this law be respected by the mother herself in both her words and her actions.

The subject now sees the father as a rival for the mother's desire.


The third 'time' of the Oedipus complex is marked by the intervention of the real father.

By showing that he has the phallus, and neither exchanges it nor gives it (S3, 319), the real father castrates the child, in the sense of making it impossible for the child to persist in trying to be the phallus for the mother; it is no use competing with the real father, because he always wins.[7]

The subject is freed from the impossible and anxiety-­provoking task of having to be the phallus by realising that the father has it.

This allows the subject to identify with the father.

In this secondary (symbolic) identification the subject transcends the aggressivity inherent in primary (imaginary) identification.

Lacan follows Freud in arguing that the superego is formed out of this Oedipal identification with the father.[8]


Since the symbolic is the realm of the law, and since the Oedipus complex is the conquest of the symbolic order, it has a normative and normalising function.

"The Oedipus complex is essential for the human being to be able to accede to a humanized structure of the real."[9]

This normative function is to be understood in reference to both clinical structures and the question of sexuality.


The Oedipus complex and clinical structures

In accordance with Freud's view of the Oedipus complex as the root of all psychopathology, Lacan relates all the clinical structures to difficulties in this complex.

Since it is impossible to resolve the complex completely, a completely non-pathological position does not exist.

The closest thing is a neurotic structure; the neurotic has come through all three times of the Oedipus complex, and there is no such thing as a [[neurosis without Oedipus.

On the other hand, psychosis, perversion and phobia result when "something is essentially incomplete in the Oedipus complex."[10]

In psychosis, there is a fundamental blockage even before the first time of the Oedipus complex.

In perversion, the complex is carried through to the third time, but instead of identifying with the father, the subject identifies with the mother and/or the imaginary phallus, thus harking back to the imaginary preoedipal triangle.

A phobia arises when the subject cannot make the transition from the second time of the Oedipus complex to the third time because the real father does not intervene; the phobia then functions as a substitute for the intervention of the real father, thus permitting the subject to make the passage to the third time of the Oedipus complex (though often in an atypical way).

The Oedipus complex and sexuality

It is the particular way the subject navigates his passage through the Oedipus complex that determines both his assumption of a sexual position and his choice of a sexual object (on the question of object choice[11]).


In his seminar of 1969-70, Lacan re-examines the Oedipus complex, and analyses the myth of Oedipus as one of Freud's dreams.[12]

In this seminar (though not for the first time[13]) Lacan compares the myth of Oedipus with the other Freudian myths (the myth of the father of the horde in Totem and Taboo, and the myth of the murder of Moses[14]) and argues that the myth of Totem and Taboo is structurally opposite to the myth of Oedipus.

In the myth of Oedipus, the murder of the father allows Oedipus to enjoy sexual relations with his mother, whereas in the myth of Totem and Taboo the murder of the father, far from allowing access to the father's women, only reinforces the Law which forbids incest.[15]

Lacan argues that in this respect the myth of Totem and Taboo is more accurate than the myth of Oedipus; the former shows that enjoyment of the mother is impossible, whereas the latter presents enjoyment of the mother as forbidden but not impossible.

In the Oedipus complex a prohibition of jouissance thus serves to hide the impossibility of this jouissance; the subject can thus persist in the neurotic illusion that, were it not for the Law which forbids it, jouissance would be possible.


In his reference to fourfold models, Lacan makes an implicit criticism of all triangular models of the Oedipus complex.

Thus, though the Oedipus complex can be seen as the transition from a dual relationship to a triangular structure, Lacan argues that it is more accurately represented as the transition from a preoedipal triangle (mother-child-phallus) to an Oedipal quaternary (mother-child-father-phallus).

Another possibility is to see the Oedipus complex as a transition from the preoedipal triangle (mother-child-phallus) to the Oedipal triangle (mother-child-father).










One of the cornerstones of the theory of psychoanalysis, the idea of the Oedipus complex derives from the Greek legend that tells how Oedipus unwittingly killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta.

When he finally learns what he has done, he blinds himself.

The existence of the Oedipus complex explains the childs sexual attaction towards the parent of the opposite sex and jealously of the parent of the same sex.

Although the Oedipus complex is absolutely central to Freud's theory of human development, no one paper is devoted to it.


-

In Lacanian terms, the Oedipus complex marks the transiiton from a dual and potentially incestuous relationship with the mother to a triadic relationship in which the role and authority of the father or the Name-of-the-Father are recognized.

Failure to negotiate this transition is held by all schools of psychoanalysis to be the primary cause of [neurosis]].

Freudians normally date the Oedipus complex to the ages of three to five years; according to Klein, it occurs much earlier.


--

References to the Oedipus complex can be foudn in some of Freud's earliest writings.

In a letter to Fliess


It initially refers to the boy's perception of his mother as a sexual object and of his father as a rival, but Freud's description of this 'universal phenomenon' becomes more complicated as he integrates the findings of his studies of the 'sexual theories of children.'

These theories are attempts to explain the phenomenon of seuxal difference, and assume the existence of a primal state in which tonly maleness exists; the fact that a girl does not hav emale genitals is therefore the result of her castration, castration being an equivalent to the blidning of Oedipus.

a gay may beieve that she has been castrated by a jealous mother who resents her sexual feelings for her father, whislt theboy fears that he might be castrated by a jealous father.

as he comes both to a ccept the reality of that threat and to identify with the father, the idssolution fo her ---

Although Lacan follows Freud in making the Oedipus complec the curcial moment in human development, he modifies the concept in a number of ways, both by introducing the idea of a symbolic phallis which is distinct from the biologicla penis, and by mapping it onto the transition from nature to culture described by Levi-Strauss.

A succesful negotiation of the Oedipal triangle is a preconditionfor entry into the human symbolic order.








Oedipus complex

Sigmund Freud

Jacques Lacan

The Oedipus complex and clinical structures

The Oedipus complex and sexuality

  1. Freud, Sigmund. 1985.
  2. Lacan, Jacques. 1938: 66
  3. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p.199
  4. Lacan, Jacques. 1957-8: seminar of 22 January 1958
  5. Lacan, Jacques. 1957-8: seminar of 22 January 1958
  6. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.225-6
  7. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.208-9, 227
  8. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.415
  9. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p.198
  10. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.201
  11. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.201
  12. Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XVII. L'envers de la psychanalyse, 19669-70. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. Ch. 8
  13. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992.
  14. Freud, Sigmund. 1912-13; 1939a
  15. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. p.176