Electra complex
Electra complex is the concept of C. G. Jungs analytical psychology for the excessive attachment of a female person to the father with simultaneous hostility towards the mother; According to Jung, he is considered the female counterpart to the Oedipus complex . The term was introduced by him in 1913 in his attempt at a presentation of psychoanalytic theory .
designation
The name is derived from the Greek legendary figure Elektra , who helps her brother Orestes to murder her mother Klytaimnestra and her stepfather Aigisthus , in revenge for the fact that they murdered Agamemnon , the father of the siblings and Klytaimnestra's former husband.
theory
The theoretical basis of the term is Sigmund Freud's assumption of " penis envy ". Freud assumed an original bond between mother and daughter. The penis envy marks a breaking point in this relationship because the daughter accuses the mother of having given birth with a deficiency. The daughter turns away from the (disappointing) mother and towards the father. This approach by Freud is seen by parts of feminist research as problematic, among other things because the historical and societal nature of the family constellation on which his considerations are based is not sufficiently reflected.
Freud's contradiction
In his 1931 article On Female Sexuality, Freud rejects Jung's idea of an electra complex. According to Freud, the relationship between the two sexes and their parents is not symmetrical, as Jung assumes, but asymmetrical. Only in the male child, in Freud's view, does the simultaneous love for the parent of the opposite sex and the hatred of rivalry towards the parent of the same sex regularly develop; only in the boy this relationship is lost due to the castration complex .
The first difference between male and female development, Freud objects to Jung, is that the sexual development of girls can take place in very different ways. Love for the father - the equivalent of the Oedipus complex - is only one of three possible development paths for the girl; the second consists in the general turning away from sexuality, the third in the emphasis on masculinity, in the so-called masculinity complex.
Freud's second objection is that the female form of the Oedipus complex differs from that of the boy in the different function of the castration complex. The boy's Oedipus complex is destroyed by the castration complex. That of the girl, on the other hand, is created in the first place through the castration complex. In addition, Freud believes, women often never break the father bond .
swell
- ↑ CG Jung: Attempt to present the psychoanalytic theory (1913). In: Ders .: Collected Works, Vol. 4. Freud and Psychoanalysis. Rascher, Zurich, and Walter, Olten 1969
- ^ S. Freud: About female sexuality (1931). In: Ders .: Study edition, Vol. V. Sexualleben. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2000, pp. 273-292, here: 278 f.