CriticaLink | Freud: On Narcissism | Terms

An effect of the Oedipus complex, the developmental stage in which children develop strong libidinal attachments to one parent (in Freud's model, the parent of the opposite sex) and jealous hostility toward the other, the castration complex takes different courses depending on the gender of the child. "Castration anxiety" in the male results from the boy's fear that the father will intervene in his relationship with his mother by cutting off his penis. For the female, "penis envy" emerges when the girl perceives herself as lacking the penis. Her attraction for her father is in part conditioned by her desire to (re)possess this missing part.

• Adler, Alfred
• Bleuler, Eugen
• Busch, Wilhelm
• Ferenczi, Sándor
• Heine, Heinrich
• Jung, Carl Gustav
• Kraepelin, Emil

• anaclitic object choice
• anxiety neurosis
• cathexis
• Cogito
• dementia praecox
• erotogenicity
• hypochondria
• hysteria
• idealization
• instinct
• introversion
• libido
• narcissism
• narcissistic object choice
• neurasthenia
• neurosis
• Oedipus complex
• paraphrenia
• primary narcissism
• retrogression
• schizophrenia
• sublimation
• superego
• transference neuroses
• Umwelt
• vicissitude