The Oedipus Complex. Phallic Stage

3. Phallic Stage

Freud taught that during the phallic stage of development every boy desires to kill his father and have sexual intercourse with his mother, and every girl has a desire to kill her mother and have sexual intercourse with her father. Freud attributed these desires to all children between the ages of three and six. According to this theory, both the boy and girl love the mother at the beginning and resent the father because he is a rival for the mother’s attention. This idea persists in the boy until he finally, unconsciously desires the death or absence of his father, whom he considers his rival, and wants to have sexual intercourse with his mother. “During the fourth and fifth years of life, the libido is centered in the genital region. Children at this age are frequently observed examining their genitalia, masturbating, and asking questions about birth and sex. The conflict in the phallic stage is the last and the most crucial one with which the young child must cope. The conflict involves the child unconscious wish to possess his opposite-sexed parent and at the same time to eliminate his same sexed parent. Freud called this situation Oedipus Complex. The name is derived from the Greek myth in which Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother.” 23

a. The Oedipus Complex.

The Oedipus complex operates somewhat differently for males and females. The little boy’s first love object is his mother. As the libido centers in the genital zone, his love for his mother becomes erotically 23 Robert M. limber and Michael D. Spiegler, Personality, The Strategies For The Study Of Man Illinois: the Dorsey press, 1974. tinged and therefore incestuous. However, the boy’s father stands becomes his rival or enemy. Associated with his antagonism for and wish to eliminate his father are the boy’s fears that his father will retaliate. The little boy’s casual observations that woman lack penises suggest to him that his father’s revenge will be extracted in the form of castration. This threat of castration, experienced as castration anxiety, forces the boy to give up his wish to posses his mother. The resolution of the Oedipus Complex is said to occur when the boy represses puts out of consciousness his incestuous desires for his mother and identifies with his father. The latter process is called defensive identification and follows from the boy’s unconscious ‘reasoning’: “I cannot directly possess my mother, for fear of being castrated by my father. I can however posses her vicariously. I can get some of the joy of possessing my mother by becoming like my father.” The boy thus resolves his conflict by incorporating his father’s behaviors, attitudes, and values, thereby simultaneously eliminating his castration anxiety, possessing his mother vicariously, and assimilating those behaviors necessary for appropriate sex-role behavior. This Oedipus complex stage is when identification’s process is met in a child. The Oedipus complex for the little girl, sometimes called the Electra Complex, 24 is considerably more complicated and less clear than a young boy. The little girl’s first object of love is also her mother. 24 In Greek mythology, Electra persuaded her brother to murder their mother and their mother’s lover, who together had killed their father. However, during the phallic stage, when her libido is centered in the genital zone the little girl is likely to discover that while her father and other males such as brother have penises, she and her mother And other woman do not. She reasons that she must have had penis at one time and she blames her mother for her apparent castration. This, along her disappointment in her mother, such as those revolving around conflicts in earlier psychosexual stages, leads to some lost of love for her mother and subsequent increased love for her father. Her love for her father, which is erotically tinged is couple with envy because he has a penis. Penis envy is, in some case, the counterpart of castration anxiety. However, unlike castration anxiety, which motivates the little boy to renounce his incestuous desires, penis envy carries with it no threat of retaliation by the mother, since the ultimate punishment, castration, has no meaning for the girl.

b. The Womb Envy