According to Sigmund Freud, the complex of Oedipus happens when the child reaches the sexual phallic period and realizes the diferent genres, beginning to focus its libidinous attention to the people of the oposite sex in the family. The concept was described by Freud and received the designation of complex by Carl Jung, who developed the similar concept of complex of Electra.

ORIGIN

This complex it's named after the Greek mythical character Oedipus who fulfilled a prophecy which told that he would kill his father and marry his mother, and indeed he did it, although he didn't knew his parents were.

THE THEORY

The complex of Oedipus it's a reference to the menace of castration caused by the destruction of the phallic genital organization of the child, radicated in the libidinal psycho-dynamic, that has as a background the libidinal experiences that begins at the removal of the mothers breast feeding. It's important to realize the libido it's a sexual energy, but not only in the sexual practise, but also in the investments that the individual makes to obtain pleasure.

The complex of Oedipus it's a fundamental concept for psychoanalysis, being universal. It's characterized by contraditory feelings of love and hostility. This concept is seen as love to mother and hate to father, but this thought remains only because the child world is resumed to their parents.

The central idea of the complex begins on the illusion that the baby must have total protection and love. This protection is related the the mother, and by the age of 3, the child begins to face with some situations that involves interdictions. The child can no longer do certain things because is bigger, can't sleep with the parents, run naked in the house, has to behave correctly, among other things. At this moment, the child begins to be aware that isn't the center of the world and has to give away of the organized world he had been and his illusion of total protection and love.The child realizes that the parents belong to a culture and cannot focus only on him because they have other commitments. The child also realizes that the father belongs to the mother so it's hostile to him.

With the appearing of the Oedipus complex, the child leaves the reign of impulses and instincts to a more racional level. The individual that can't make the passage of the ilusion of "super-protection" to the culture level, becomes psycothic.