Oedipus complex: how does it manifest itself in men and how to deal with it?

What is the Oedipus complex

In 1897, Freud first described his childhood: tender feelings for his mother and jealousy for his father. He compared the experience to the ancient Greek work of Sophocles. The complex was named in honor of the tragedy “Oedipus the King”.

Freud's theory

The Oedipus complex as a psychological phenomenon was introduced by Freud in 1910. He believed that this phenomenon equally affects children of different sexes. Children experience unconscious attraction to a parent of the opposite sex. They see the second parent as a rival and try to eliminate him. Later, Freud's student Carl Gustav Jung coined the separate term “Electra complex.” Briefly these two phenomena can be described as follows:

boys aged 3-5 years old strive to attract the attention of their mother, are jealous of their father and see him as a rival;
Girls tend to pay more attention to their dad and take on maternal responsibilities.

As an expression of Freud's philosophical heritage, the complex gained greater significance in the research of a new generation of psychologists.

Oedipus complex in philosophy

The child's psyche has a need to be like his parent. This is an innate instinct in the formation of a holistic “I” - to identify oneself in the world around us. And the whole world of a child under 4-6 years old is home and parents.

The boy strives to be like his father. At the same time, he wants to take on the role of dad in all respects, including his own mother. The child does not ignore the fact that from a certain age their parents do not allow them to sleep with them. A contradiction, a conflict arises. The same thing works in the relationship between a daughter and her mother.

Pathogenesis

The pathogenesis is based on violations of early childhood mechanisms for determining personal sexuality and genitality, fear of loss of love and support, as well as attitudes and factors of the surrounding world. In this case, the individual desires to remain a child and feel attached to a protective figure, not so important - to his father or mother.

Peak values of the future personality disorder are predetermined by 3-5 years of the patient’s life. Then comes a stage of some extinction and further revival during puberty, which is determined by the choice of an individual erotic object.

If there is no natural resolution and formation of normal sexual orientation, then this is fraught with neurotic diseases - various neuroses, psychoses and addictions, as well as sexual deviations.

The Legend of the Oedipus Complex

This strangeness in the behavior of men goes back to the myth of King Oedipus. The Theban king Laius received a prophecy from an oracle that his son would kill his father and marry his mother. Frightened by the prediction, Lai began to avoid his wife, Jocasta. But the girl became pregnant by cunning, by getting her husband drunk.

When Laius and Jocasta had a son, the dissatisfied father left the child to die. The boy was found by a shepherd. A kind man did not abandon the child and took him to a neighboring city for adoption to a childless family. The child was named Oedipus.

The adoptive family passed off their son as their own. When the boy grew up, city residents began to notice that he did not look like his parents. Rumors reached Oedipus. He became interested in his past and began to look for his real parents. This is how he learned about the prophecy.

Frightened, he decided to avoid his adoptive parents. He headed to Thebes, where along the way he met his real father, Laius. The king of Thebes did not recognize the traveler and was rude to him. He, in turn, could not tolerate the insult and threw a spear at the royal chariot. The horses, frightened, quickly carried the king to the cliff. Without knowing it, Oedipus killed his father.

Afterwards the young man married his own mother, Jocasta, and became the king of Thebes. This is how mythology gave Freud the name “Oedipus complex.”

Oedipus complex: symptoms of manifestation

Manifestations can be very diverse. It all depends on the characteristics of the child’s character, what kind of parents he has, methods of education and levels of liberality in a particular family. Children of different sexes also behave differently at a given age.

General symptoms of the Oedipus complex

For boys and girls, many signs are considered common:

Irritability . The kid is nervous because he is constantly under mental pressure. The child cannot cope with sensations that arise unexpectedly.
Whims . The child does not want to do something if his mother or father is not near him. To get attention, the toddler uses different methods.
Difficulties associated with saying goodbye. For example, if a father or mother goes to work. The kid does not want to accept that he must let his loved one go before the end of the day. A sense of ownership appears, and therefore the child will be constantly irritable if his loved one is absent.
Refusal to communicate with other children of the same age. A frequent sign of a complex is that a child refuses to play with peers or make contact with them. The child chooses mom or dad to play, instead of communicating with friends.

Signs of the Oedipus complex in a boy

For boys, from the first day of birth, the closest person is considered to be the one who is constantly nearby. When the phallic stage comes, the baby understands that his mother is also a woman. Her love, affection for him is only sympathy that arose in this period. The child, who does not quite distinguish between these types of love, begins to perceive it as something amazing, and does not give the opportunity to someone else to receive something similar.

In boys

Jealousy of dad is manifested by irritability, regular crying, if the father tries to take away mom's attention, distract her, or simply start a conversation with mom. At this time, the baby thinks that he and his mother are one whole, and therefore does not want to share, and this is how the Oedipus complex manifests itself.

Dad is a person of the same sex, so he can be a competitor for the boy. In a word, the idyll that the baby comes up with in his head does not allow for an extra rival. The child does not want to allow anyone closer, so that the connection with his mother, known to him, does not break down.

Signs of the Oedipus complex in girls

The Oedipus complex can also develop in girls. When she turns 3 years old, she begins to associate herself with a woman. She realizes that she is very similar to her mother, and therefore the first attachments with her mother become something more over time. The girl tries to copy her mother’s behavior, choosing her tastes and manners. In addition, the girl analyzes her mother’s choice of life partner.

During this period, the ideal side of the family begins to form, where happiness is personified by the father for the mother and girl. Dad is considered a model, even a prototype. In the future, the child will try to find a loved one who is similar to his dad. She may be jealous of her mother.

For girls

The attention that men show, even if this attention comes from the father, will be the main thing for a girl at this stage of life. If a girl notices that her dad’s behavior is not at all ideal, she will even begin to have a negative attitude towards him. And this can greatly affect the future of the child. It will be difficult for the girl to trust guys; she will not be able to quickly choose a partner, since her prototype was completely imperfect.

Oedipus complex in men

The father plays a huge role in a boy's life. This is the first authority that you want to rely on. This is an example to strive for. He does not allow the mother to protect her son with immeasurable love, and stops overprotection. In a word, this is a person who helps a child get out from under his mother’s skirt. Mom is kind and gentle, father is strict but fair.

The boy's father violates his childish fantasies about his mother. Because of their father, they seem wrong, unnatural. Therefore, the child displaces them and outgrows them. But when a child is raised by one mother, a completely different situation arises. This is how the reasons for strange behavior in an adult man arise.

But in practice, the mother can occupy a dominant position in the family, and the father can be weak-willed. Or it may not exist at all. Then the mother showers her only son with all the love and care. There are no barriers between mother and son, and the Oedipus complex bursts into the life of an adult man.

Why is the complex dangerous?

What can the Oedipus complex lead to? First of all, it leads to the lack of independence of a teenager, which can persist into adulthood. Remember "mama's boys". The mother, on top of everything else, can help maintain the Oedipus complex in her son’s psyche by overprotecting him and depriving him of the opportunity to show his own initiative. But this is not enough. By becoming attached to “his only woman,” his mother, the son acquires typically feminine character traits (just as a daughter with an Electra complex, attached to her father, becomes “masculine,” or more precisely, masculine).

Next, a guy with an Oedipus complex may have difficulty communicating with girls. There are two sides to the problem here. The first is that timid, “effeminate” young men who are overly attached to their mother are rejected by most girls. After all, a man must be strong and brave, this is an established stereotype. By the way, the Electra complex in girls does not give a similar effect: many men are attracted to tough, brave, determined ladies with a “masculine” character, although they are not always ready to enter into a love relationship with them and start a family. The Oedipus guy in many cases is doomed to complete loneliness and misunderstanding. The second side is the young man’s inability to adequately evaluate the girls he encounters. Consciously or subconsciously, he compares them with his mother and comes to the conclusion that the girl he meets is not ideal, since she is not like her. Ultimately, he may become completely disappointed in women.

How does the Oedipus complex manifest itself?

You can notice specific oddities in a child’s behavior between the ages of 3 and 5 years. During these years, the phallic stage of the child’s psychosexual development occurs. Over the years, the complex disappears. But under certain circumstances (incomplete family, authoritarian mother, etc.) the child may become fixated on problems.

Signs of the Oedipus complex in adult men

A boy without a father understands that his mother will always feed him and be sorry. No rival will come between them. Growing up takes longer. Then the question arises, how to recognize the Oedipus complex:

a man lives with his mother at 20-30-40 years old;
is in no hurry to get a girlfriend or wife;
compares any potential partner with his mother;
extreme stage – sits on mom’s neck, doesn’t work.

Polymorphic infantile sexuality

Freud refers to sexual

any physiological satisfaction of the child: sucking the breast, defecation and urination - all this Freud calls
polymorphic sexuality of the pregenital phase of development
.
Freud calls the age from two to five years the flowering of infantile sexuality
, which corresponds to the period of development
of the Oedipus complex
.
At the same time, Freud emphasizes that the mother herself experiences sexual feelings
:
V. A. Nagornov.
Mother and Child “A child’s communication with his nannies constitutes for him a continuous source of sexual arousal

and satisfaction through erogenous zones, especially since this nanny - usually the mother - herself has feelings for the child that come from the area of her sexual life, she caresses, kisses and rocks him and treats him quite clearly as a full-fledged sexual
object
."
(“ Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
”)

Freud expanded sexuality

to
tenderness
and, in general
love
, or, to be more precise, declared
sexual attraction
to be the main
life-forming
attraction of a person, the quintessence of all his thoughts and intentions, calling it
libido
.
With this, Freud brought psychoanalysis the wrath of his opponents, who accused him of pansexualism
and the sexualization of child development.
Modern psychoanalysts prefer to hide Freud's concept of the central role of sexuality in child development behind the psychologism " psychosexuality
" introduced by Freud.
At the same time, Freud especially emphasized not only the role of sexuality in the development of a child, but also that “the final state
of infantile sexuality (at approximately the age of five) approaches the final formation of sexuality in
an adult
”
(“ Infantile genital organization
”).
But one should not conclude from this that Freud considered a five-year-old child to be sexually mature
.
For a child, sexuality still remains infantile
.

How to deal with the Oedipus complex

“Mother’s son” does not want to get rid of her care. The only way to snatch him from the clutches of maternal love is to realize the consequences of such a problem:

childlessness;
hopelessness, lack of initiative;
lack of personal space;
lack of sex life;
inability to survive in society.

The only way to get rid of the problem is to weaken the role of the mother in a man’s life. At the same time, it is important to recognize the threat in time so that it is not too late.

Oedipus complex in boys: what to do?

It is important for mothers to understand that excessive custody of a child is a direct path to death. This is especially true for single mothers. If you see that your son does not leave your side at the age of 12-14, then sound the alarm. Teach him independence, send him to wrestling courses, where he can communicate with men. It is important for a fatherless boy to find an authority that he can look up to. This could be a coach, an uncle, an older brother.

If you are a father and notice a similar problem in your child, show interest in his life. Spend time together. The boy is in dire need of your care and support.

How to remove the complex from an adult man

In a man over 30, the Oedipus complex is treated radically: by moving out of his mother’s house. The only way. It is necessary to force a person to live independently, to reduce the influence of the mother. Otherwise, why look for relationships and develop if you have a mother?

How to treat it

To overcome the complex, you need to undergo treatment with a psychotherapist. First, a person must admit to himself that there is a problem and it needs to be solved. It is impossible to cope with the disease without the client’s desire. The process of getting rid of the complex includes the following series of main points:

It is necessary to get rid of negative thoughts towards one of the parents. It is necessary to openly talk about your grievances against your mother or father, to accept all the unpleasant moments that are associated with this person.
We need to say “Stop” to idealization. Each personality has both negative and positive sides. You should not be biased towards your mother, but at the same time elevate the role of your father. Men need to do the opposite. It is necessary to emphasize the positive qualities of the father.

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One must recognize one's own nature. A guy needs to believe in his own masculinity, and a girl needs to believe in her femininity. To strengthen the result, you need to make as many friends of the same gender as possible.

All psychological work with the complex is based on psychoanalytic techniques. During therapy, the psychologist constantly returns the client to childhood to find the cause of the disorder and “replay” the plot. To rid a child of the complex, parents should:

create a favorable atmosphere in the family;
provide your son or daughter with the attention of both mom and dad;
do not let your baby sleep with you in bed or take a bath;
the child needs to set clear boundaries of what is permitted;
You need to communicate a lot with the baby on various topics, including discussing experiences and feelings;
organize leisure time and communication for the child outside the family with other children.

If you cannot cope with the disease on your own, you need to consult a psychologist.

Fear of castration

The boy's father, one way or another, by the very fact of his existence, violates the idyll of the dyad

son with his mother, destroying the child's fantasies about his marriage to his mother and their future children. A boy who regards his mother as his property, experiences anger, reaching the point of hatred, towards his competitor, attributing to his rival a similar strength of feeling, being sure that he will be punished for such an attack.

“If a boy feels in a strong father a rival for his mother, notices in himself aggressive inclinations against his father and sexual intentions towards his mother, then he is right when he develops anxiety in front of his father, and this anxiety of punishment from the latter, reinforced by phylogenetic factors, can manifest as castration anxiety

."
(“ Inhibition, symptom, anxiety
.” Freud)
Arsen Savadov.
Toys It seems logical for a boy to expect that the punishment for his sexual advances on his mother will be castration

.
This corresponds to the logic of the law of talion
: like is punished by like - which, as is considered in classical psychoanalysis, corresponds to the laws of the activity of the unconscious person.

It is assumed that someone from the family already caught the boy playing with his penis, threatening to cut it off. But, according to Freud, the real frightening revelation for the boy is the discovery of a “scar” on the girl in the place where the penis should have been.

"We maintain that the phallic genital organization

the child dies from this
threat of castration
.
Of course, not immediately and not without a trace, since the child, first of all, does not give faith to this threat and does not become obedient. […] Only after a new observation is made does the child begin to consider the possibility of castration, but he does this slowly, reluctantly and not without a desire to downplay the significance of his own observation. This observation, which finally breaks the child's disbelief, is female genitalia. The child, proud of the possession of a penis, someday gets the opportunity to see the genital area of a little girl and is convinced of the absence of a penis in a creature so similar to himself. This makes it possible for him to imagine the loss of his own penis; the threat of castration begins to have its delayed effect.” (“ The Death of the Oedipus Complex
.” Freud)

It’s a difficult question: is it really the fear of castration

is the basic fear of the Oedipal period, or it may be the fear of punishment in any form that corresponds to the customs of the family and/or the fantasies of the child.
For Freud, there are only three forms of fear: the fear of losing the love object
and the fear
of losing love
for the pre-Oedipal period, and, accordingly,
the fear of castration
for the Oedipal period (“
Inhibition, symptom, anxiety
”).
Freud does not seem to see any other forms of punishment, such as deprivation of pleasure (sweets, for example), freedom (corner), communication (ban on walking) or physical harm (belt). fear of punishment
to Freud’s three forms of fear .
Other psychoanalysts have found a compromise for themselves; they use the term “castration fear”, paying tribute to Freud, but add that castration in psychoanalytic terminology symbolizes any punishment
.

Freud also mentions the boy's fear that his mother does not love him because his penis is incomparably smaller than his father's

(“
Analysis of a five-year-old boy’s phobia
”).
This sad discovery plays a certain role in the renunciation of claims to the mother during the death of the Oedipus complex
.

We must pay tribute to the fact that in addition to the fear of castration, in the formation of the personality of a boy in the oedipal phase, Freud also mentions the influence of the father’s authority

,
religious teaching
,
learning
and
reading
(“
I and It
”).

“... Such painful discoveries, contrary to the content of the complex, are inevitable, ... the lack of expected satisfaction, the constant refusal of what is desired should lead to the fact that the little lover turns away from his hopeless inclination. Thus, the Oedipus complex dies due to its internal impossibility

."
(“ The Death of the Oedipus Complex
.” Freud)

And the boy gains patience to wait for his penis to grow. Freud does not list all the reasons that contribute to the child’s refusal of Oedipal claims, generalizing them that the Oedipus complex dies “from the onset of painful disappointments... the child feels thrown out of heaven

"
. (“ The Death of the Oedipus Complex
”).
The child begins to understand that he is still small and sexually incompetent. Freud also compares raising a child to “building dams”
that form
“delays on the path of sexual desire”
(“
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
”).
But the boy’s Oedipus complex, nevertheless, according to Freud, is destroyed precisely by the fear of castration
,
“which becomes
the most powerful driving force of further development ”
(“ Introduction to Psychoanalysis
”).