{"id":8624,"date":"2019-05-22T16:09:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/oedipal_complex\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:09:44","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:09:44","slug":"oedipal_complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/oedipal_complex\/","title":{"rendered":"Oedipal complex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The stage of development hypothesized by Sigmund Freud in his book <span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">The interpretation of dreams<\/span> (1899) in which a boy, at around 3-5 years of age, falls in love with his mother, has an unconscious desire to have sex with her, &nbsp;but fears castration by his father. &nbsp;The female analogue is the Electra complex as proposed by<a href=\"http:\/\/psychology.about.com\/od\/profilesofmajorthinkers\/p\/jungprofile.htm\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/psychology.about.com\/od\/profilesofmajorthinkers\/p\/jungprofile.htm&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Carl Gustav Jung<\/a> (1875-1961), but for Freud it referred more to &#8216;penis envy&#8217;. &nbsp;The successful resolution of this dilemma is supposed to lead to male gender identification. &nbsp;If not, then the trauma of infantile neurosis foreshadows similar problems in adulthood. &nbsp;Overcoming the Oedipal complex facilitates the superego, a moral factor that comes to dominate the adult mind. &nbsp;The term derives from the mythical king of Thebes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.britannica.com\/gallery\/browse\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.britannica.com\/gallery\/browse&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oedipus,<\/a> who unwittingly killed his father and then married his mother. &nbsp;The same course of events is considered to have operated in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/electra%20complex\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/electra%20complex&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Electra complex<\/a>, who slew his mother. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"infantile_sexuality\">Infantile sexuality<\/a>, <a href=\"psychoanalysis\">Psychoanalysis<\/a>, <a href=\"superego\">Superego<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The stage of development hypothesized by Sigmund Freud in his book The interpretation of dreams (1899) in which a boy, at around 3-5 years of age, falls in love with his mother, has an unconscious desire to have sex with her, &nbsp;but fears castration by his father. &nbsp;The female analogue is the Electra complex as &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/oedipal_complex\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Oedipal complex&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}