Electra complex

Electra complex is a term coined by Carl Jung to describe a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. It is a counterpart to Sigmund Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex. In the course of her psychosexual development, the complex is the girl's phallic stage; a time when she has a sexual desire for her father.

Origin of the term

The term was named after the Greek mythological figure Electra, who plotted matricidal revenge with Orestes, her brother, against Clytemnestra, their mother, and Aegisthus, their stepfather, for their murder of Agamemnon, their father (Clytemnestra's husband), and who was later said to have suffered from melancholia (the mental illness which includes severe depression, extreme guilt, and suicide) as a result.

Freud's view

Sigmund Freud instead proposed that girls and boys resolved their complexes differently—she via penis envy, he via castration anxiety; and that unsuccessful resolutions might lead to neurosis. Hence, women and men who are fixated in the Electra and Oedipal stages of their psychosexual development might be considered "father-fixated" and "mother-fixated".

Jung's view

Carl Jung proposed that both males and females could have both an Oedipus complex and an Electra complex, and that such complexes might be either positive or negative.

Criticism

The Electra complex concept is criticized for assuming that girls’ psychosexual development must be defined in relation to boys’ psychology.

See also

• Oedipus complex
• Psychosexual development
• Penis envy
• Castration anxiety

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  Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon by Frederic Leighton, 1869
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  Electra and Orestes illustration from Project Gutenberg eText
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