Superego and the Oedipus Complex

Abstract

Freud's views had an enormous impact on theories of the Oedipus complex and the development of the superego in women. Freud thought that early childhood masturbation for girls involved only the clitoris, which he equated with a little penis; thus he thought that female development was identical to that of males until the infantile genital phase. Some current formulations of the female Oedipus complex emphasize the convergence of object relations, ego and superego development, and drive progression. Edith Jacobson's Psychoanal. Q is an example of the pervasiveness of Freud's idea that the superego is a consequence of castration anxiety. Early Female Development traces the evolution of girls' feminine identity and their Oedipus complex from primary femininity, body-image formation, the phases of separation-individuation, the various oscillations in the expression of sexual and aggressive drive impulses, and the oscillations from dyadic to triadic object relations within the phallic phase.