Difference between revisions of "Talk:Oedipus complex"
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<!-- 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. / 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. --> | <!-- 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. / 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. --> | ||
<!-- 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. --> | <!-- 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. --> | ||
| + | <!-- 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.' --> | ||
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=====History===== | =====History===== | ||
| − | <!-- Although the term does not appear in [[Freud]]'s writings until 1910, traces of its origins can be found much earlier in his work, and by 1910 it was already showing signs of the central importance that it was to acquire in all [[psychoanalytic theory]] thereafter. --> | + | <!-- References to the [[Oedipus complex]] can be foudn in some of [[Freud]]'s earliest writings./ Although the term does not appear in [[Freud]]'s writings until 1910, traces of its origins can be found much earlier in his work, and by 1910 it was already showing signs of the central importance that it was to acquire in all [[psychoanalytic theory]] thereafter. --> |
The "[[Oedipus complex]]" is first introduced by [[Freud]] in 1901; it comes to acquire central importance in [[psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic theory]] thereafter. | The "[[Oedipus complex]]" is first introduced by [[Freud]] in 1901; it comes to acquire central importance in [[psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic theory]] thereafter. | ||
<!-- The "[[Oedipus complex]]" was posited by [[Sigmund Freud]] as the central organizing principle of psychosexual development. crucial stage in the normal developmental process. --> | <!-- The "[[Oedipus complex]]" was posited by [[Sigmund Freud]] as the central organizing principle of psychosexual development. crucial stage in the normal developmental process. --> | ||
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The [[Oedipus complex]] is named after [[Oedipus]], a prominent figure in Greek mythology who unwittingly killed his [[father]] and married his [[mother]]. | The [[Oedipus complex]] is named after [[Oedipus]], a prominent figure in Greek mythology who unwittingly killed his [[father]] and married his [[mother]]. | ||
<!-- 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./ 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." --> | <!-- 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./ 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." --> | ||
| + | <!-- Followers of the psychologist Sigmund Freud long believed that the Oedipus complex was common to all cultures, although many psychiatrists now refute this belief. --> | ||
===Phallic Phase=== | ===Phallic Phase=== | ||
The [[Oedipus complex]] emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year. The [[Oedipus complex]] coincides with the [[phallic stage]] of [[development|psychosexual development]]. 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). | The [[Oedipus complex]] emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year. The [[Oedipus complex]] coincides with the [[phallic stage]] of [[development|psychosexual development]]. 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). | ||
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<!-- It occurs during the phallic stage of the psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five. The [[Oedipus complex]] emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year when the [[child]] [[renunciation|renounces]] [[desire|sexual desire]] for its parents and [[identification|identifies]] with the rival. --> | <!-- It occurs during the phallic stage of the psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five. The [[Oedipus complex]] emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year when the [[child]] [[renunciation|renounces]] [[desire|sexual desire]] for its parents and [[identification|identifies]] with the rival. --> | ||
<!-- during 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 -- | <!-- during 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 -- | ||
<!-- 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. --> | <!-- 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. --> | ||
| + | <!-- Freudians normally date the [[Oedipus complex]] to the ages of three to five years; according to [[Klein]], it occurs much earlier. --> | ||
| + | <!-- | ||
| + | =====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. | ||
| + | --> | ||
| + | <!-- the fact that a girl does not hav emale genitals is therefore the result of her castration, --> | ||
==Jacques Lacan== | ==Jacques Lacan== | ||
| + | <!-- | ||
| + | In Lacanian terms, the [[Oedipus complex]] marks the transition 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. Although Lacan follows Freud in making the [[Oedipus complex]] the crucial moment in human development, he modifies the concept in a number of ways, both by introducing the idea of a symbolic phallic which is distinct from the biological 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 precondition for entry into the human symbolic order. | ||
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===Family Complexes=== | ===Family Complexes=== | ||
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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]]. | 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). | 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). | ||
| + | <!-- | ||
| + | =====Psychopathology===== | ||
| + | Failure to negotiate this transition is held by all schools of psychoanalysis to be the primary cause of [neurosis]]. | ||
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| + | 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. | ||
| + | --> | ||
<!-- | <!-- | ||
=====The Oedipus complex and sexuality===== | =====The Oedipus complex and sexuality===== | ||
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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]]). | 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]]). | ||
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Revision as of 19:33, 7 November 2006
Sigmund Freud
Definition
The "Oedipus complex" is a concept used by Sigmund Freud to refer to the unconscious sexual desire of the child - especially a male child - for the parent of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by hostility and rivalry with the parent of the same sex.
History
The "Oedipus complex" is first introduced by Freud in 1901; it comes to acquire central importance in psychoanalytic theory thereafter.
Oedipus Rex
The Oedipus complex is named after Oedipus, a prominent figure in Greek mythology who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
Phallic Phase
The Oedipus complex emerges in the third year of life and then declines in the fifth year. The Oedipus complex coincides with the phallic stage of psychosexual development. 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).
Jacques Lacan
Symbolic Structure
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."[1] 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.
Three Times
In The Seminar, Book V, Lacan analyzes 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.[2]
The first time of the Oedipus complex is characterized by the imaginary triangle of mother, child and phallus.
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
First Time
In the first time of the Oedipus complex, then, the child realizes 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.
Second Time
The second 'time' of the Oedipus complex is characterized 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.
Third Time
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,[3], 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.[4] The subject is freed from the impossible and anxiety-provoking task of having to be the phallus by realizing that the father has it. This allows the subject to identify with the father. Lacan follows Freud in arguing that the superego is formed out of this Oedipal identification with the father.[5]
Structure
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 normalizing function. "The Oedipus complex is essential for the human being to be able to accede to a humanized structure of the real."[6] 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."[7] 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).
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p.199
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. 1957-8: seminar of 22 January 1958
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p. 319
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. pp. 208-9, 227
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 415
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p.198
- ↑ 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
