Psychoanalytic view of neurotic forms of love object choice

Abstract

The way of building relationships and choosing a partner in life can not be something random between two people who decide to spend part of their lives together. Of course, many of our experiences in life lead us to certain choices. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, goes further when he says that partner selection is determined by the early relationship between child and parent. Even Freud in his essay “On some neurotic mechanisms in jealousy, paranoia and homosexuality” (1922) says that “these jealousies take root in the depths of the unconscious, take back the earliest movements of infantile affectivity and originate from the Oedipus complex” (p. 217). The roots for this are found in the triangle of the child-mother-father relationship and the phallic stage where the child shows the most pronounced closeness to the parent of the opposite sex (all this a necessary and indispensable process). The way of expressing love between parents and consequently the expression as triumphant in front of the child with the word “I took mom/dad” can affect that in adulthood, the individual develops pathological behavior. Every behavior, from what we explained to the choice of the object of love, has its roots in early relationships.