Pure-Essence.Net

electra complex?

May 8th, 2002

I never had this education before:

Electra was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who wanted her brother to avenge their father’s death by killing their mother.

According to Freud, during the phallic stage the daughter becomes attached to her father and more hostile towards her mother. This is due mostly to the idea that the girl is “envious” of her father’s penis and wants to possess it so strongly that she dreams of bearing his children, thus the term “penis-envy”. This leads to resentment towards her mother, who the girl believes caused her castration. The idea that the Electra complex is referred to most of the time as “penis-envy” shows where Freud was in his thought process. He simply thinks the male psyche is the dominant entity in human relations, and that female influence is secondary. This may be due in part to his belief that girls have weaker superegos, where morality is developed and values internalized. We develop this judicial component of our personality during the phallic stage.

and here’s a true conversation between a mother and a three year old daughter.