The complex is thought to persist into adulthood as an unconscious psychic structure which can assist in social adaptation but also be the cause of neurosis. įreud's ideas of castration anxiety and penis envy refer to the differences of the sexes in their experience of the Oedipus complex. The general concept was considered by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), although the term itself was introduced in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (1910). A daughter's attitude of desire for her father and hostility toward her mother is referred to as the feminine Oedipus complex. In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) refers to a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.
Idea in psychoanalysis Oedipus describes the riddle of the Sphinx by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, c.
