Electra Complex is a stage of psychosexual development of female children, according to psychoanalysis. It consists of the step in which the daughter starts to feel attracted to her own father, vying with his mother for this man's attention.
The expression “Electra Complex” was created by the Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung, in reference to the Greek myth of Electra.
According to Greek mythology, Electra was the daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. She was immortalized for having planned the death of her own mother, as revenge for having murdered her father.
The creator of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, for example, did not accept the use of “Electra's Complex” as an adequate term to describe this psychic phenomenon.
According to Freud, the Electra myth makes an analogy to the two sexes (male and female), as it would have been Electra's brother who killed her mother, even though this act was ordered by the young woman.
Therefore, from a Freudian perspective, the Electra Complex is referred to as Female Oedipus Complex.
According to some psychoanalytic doctrines, the Electra Complex manifests itself between the first three and five years of a girl's life.
During the first 3 years of life, the child maintains a very strong affectionate bond with the mother figure. However, from this age onwards, she starts to want to draw her father's attention and, for that, begins a phase of imitation of mother's behaviors.
Playing with the mother's makeup, dresses, shoes and other objects can be symptoms that the girl is going through the Electra Complex. Unconsciously, by engaging in this behavior, the child yearns to attract the parent's attention.
In order to overcome the Electra Complex, psychiatrists advise that parents talk to the daughter about love, helping her to differentiate the kinds of feelings that exist between father-daughter and husband wife.
According to psychoanalysis, if the Electra Complex is not correctly exceeded, the girl can face several problems in adult life, such as difficulty in dealing with love relationships, difficulties in taking responsibility, project the father figure in your future relationships or even create a conflictual relationship with the own mother.
It is noteworthy that the meaning of the words “attraction” and “desire”, in this context, should not be totally compared to the feeling that adults have.
See also: the meaning of psychology.
Oedipus complex
Unlike the Electra Complex, the Oedipus Complex is characterized by the development of the desire that the child (male) feels for the mother figure.
As in the female version, the Oedipus Complex develops between the first three and five years of a child's life.
Freud was responsible for creating the study that originated the Oedipus Complex, based on the Greek myth of “Oedipus the King” who, according to legend, would have murdered his father and married his own mother.
Learn more about the meaning of Oedipus complex.