could go ethir way, the boy could compete w/ his mother for his fathers love.

but the theory states that the boy will compete with his father (even be compelled to kill) for his mother's love

I don't believe most of Freud. He was a crackpot lol.

well we are doing "Oedipus the King" in my literature class
and i just wanted know what everyone else thought about this
i thought it was interesting after reading the play

The play is certainly interesting lol.

yeah it's really weird..
but it kept me interested
=)
and then my professor talked about Freud and his theory
and i thought that was really interesting =)

I don't believe in the oedipus/electra complex. I just don't buy the idea of young kids 'desiring' their mothers/fathers, even if it is subconscious. I don't like the idea of penis envy as well, as it suggests that women are inferior to men.
But I do agree with Freud's psychodynamic theory of personality, like the oral stage, anal stage etc. I can accept that because you can sort of see it (i.e. smokers were over/under indulged at the oral stage etc).
But no, for the oedipus thing. Not for me.

Freud's psychological theories have many faults such as limiting his studies to one very specific culture. They cannot be applied across the board. However, as the founder of psychoanalysis, he had some good ideas. I don't know enough about the Oedipus theory to expound on that.



Actually, he was a "coke-pot".

Didn't Freud also say something about how all women have penis envy? Something to that effect? (Please feel free to correct me, someone.)

My e-penis is HUGE, by the way.

Yep, they did.
Here's another one: his theories can't be proved...or disproved. I don't believe that I had sexual feelings for my dad when I was little, but Freud would explain this as denial, which is a defence mechanism to protect the ego. And, these 'feelings' are unconscious so how would anybody know if they had them or not if they weren't aware of them??
So, just believe what you want, in this case!

I'll go with that, Birch- Freud was a coke-pot.

I don't buy most of his theories such as this one.

You can't disprove the existence of santa clause either, that doesn't make me willing to believe in him.

I believe Freud opened some important doors, but that's about it.

what about women will marry men that are like their fathers
and men will marry women who are like their mothers?
does anyone believe this?

No, sorry lol. My hubby is very different than my dad.

I can see if you really idolized your parents that you can look for someone similar to them, but I think it's more of a personality thing than unconscious desire thing.

It does happen, but so? That means the girl has respect for people like her father OR that she doesn't know how to receive love from men in any other way than what she experienced from her father (in cases like abusive father leads to abusive husbands)

Note: when I said his theory can't be disproved, I meant it as a flaw, not a 'believe this cuz you can't prove it wrong' type of thing. So you can really choose whether or not you want to believe it lol.
And yes, he does mention that women have penis envy, because of the electra complex, where a young girl believes she used to have a penis but was castrated and she then desires her father because he will provide her with a penis so she identifies with the mother to get closer to the dad etc etc....
or something to that effect.

A theory that cannot be disproved is not a valid theory, that's what you are trying to say, right, Lion?

It's just a flaw. All theories have flaws. It doesn't make it right or wrong, and as much as it can't be disproved it can't be proved either, which is the case for most theories.

The original poster forgot to leave the implication of Freud's Oedipus Complex (the female version being called Elektra Complex (a similar story from way back like Oedipus)) theory. Where a son is sexually interested in gaining his mother's love, and competitive with his father.

Uuh No, bluntly put, I think he just thought his mom was a MILF and couldn't see how anybody else could see otherwise, so he wrote up a paper to tell the world of his beliefs.

He has some interesting theories, which I can correlate with, such as what is known as the Freudian Slip, or his dream theories.

Penis Envy and Oedipus, no.

I just put in what my professor had told us bc we had just studied 'oedipus the king' he never mentioned the electra complex thats why i didnt mention it...

And by no means do i believe any of this..just wanted to see what everyones feelings were