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The Electra complex is a disorder in girls where a girl feels erotic love for her father and aversion to her mother, whom she treats as a rival and competitor in the fight for the same man’s feelings. These feelings are often accompanied by the fear of retaliation on the part of the mother, which arouses unconscious hostility in the child.
What is the Electra complex and where does its name come from?
The name of the Electra complex has its origins in Greek mythology. According to one story, Elektra, who is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and the sister of Iphigenia and Orestes, urges her brother to jointly kill their mother in retaliation for the murder of their father and her lover.
The term “Electra complex” was introduced into psychology by Karl Gustav Jung, who described a stage in girls’ development, complementary to the Oedipus complex found in boys (the term was first used by Freud). According to Jung, between the ages of 3 and 6, in the psychosexual development of girls, there is a phase of erotic fascination directed at their own father. Jung used a name taken from a mythological story, which, in his opinion, symbolized the daughter’s love (erotic) and attachment to her father, while feeling dislike, even hostility, towards her mother.
According to Jung, a few-year-old girl, whose so far dormant sexuality awakens, begins to perceive her father as the object of her romantic feelings, and her mother begins to appear to her as a rival, competing with her in the fight for the love and attention of the same man. A girl’s feelings towards her mother become ambivalent, as is the case with little boys and their attitude towards their father (this phenomenon is referred to as the Oedipus complex). On the one hand, the girl loves her mother and wants to imitate her (she wants to become like her), and on the other hand, she begins to see her as a rival for her father’s favor. The girl begins to manifest this ambivalence with her behavior, fighting for her father’s attention and demanding that she be treated as “the more important” in the family. This can manifest itself through rude behavior, for example.
According to Jung, this phase of development is natural and necessary in the formation of a child’s psychosexual attitude – as a result, it leads to identification with the parent of the same sex (mother) and adopting her behavior patterns.
The name of the Electra complex, however, may also refer to a disorder in adulthood where the daughter feels (more or less conscious) sexual attraction towards her father.
The Electra complex in adulthood
If we treat the Elektra complex as a natural phase in a girl’s development, she must naturally lose to her rival for the favors of her father, i.e. the mother. Then the girl should redirect her feelings and fascination to her peers of the opposite sex. Sometimes, however, this does not happen and the Electra complex develops into a psychosexual disorder that causes many serious problems in adulthood.
If, as a little girl, a woman “won” against her mother, and it was her father who had more respect and affection for her, she may feel that this situation is normal and continue to direct her feelings towards her father. As incest is prohibited in our culture and is a taboo subject, the erotic fascination with one’s father causes a great deal of psychological tension. There are also problems with entering into a relationship with another man – the woman subconsciously perceives it as a betrayal of her father. She also compares potential partners to the father – and this comparison is usually unfavorable for them.
The Electra complex may also appear in adulthood in girls brought up without a father – they will then look for partners of age and with the characteristics of their biological father. A woman with an Electra complex in her adult life may also resort to emotional blackmail towards her partner, because she developed such a pattern of behavior and effective fulfillment of her needs in her childhood.
Failure to properly resolve the Electra complex in childhood can result in many problems in establishing intimate relationships in adulthood.
How to proceed with the Elektra complex?
The Electra complex as a natural phase of a girl’s development does not require any special measures (apart from the reasonable behavior of the parents) and should disappear by itself. However, if this has not happened – for example due to upbringing mistakes or incorrect relationships in the family – the help of a psychologist is needed. It will help a given woman to work through unresolved childhood problems which, in her adult life, do not allow her to develop a mature partnership with a man. It is necessary for a woman to become aware of certain mechanisms of action originating in childhood, to know their causes and to correct the underlying beliefs.