Freud's concept of 'The Oedipal Complex' is certainly worth keeping as long as it is utilized properly which means 'loosening the Freudian chains' on what it means.
An 'Oedipal relationship' is a type of 'transference relationship' meaning that we are attracted to someone who reminds us of someone from our childhood past. Or the opposite!
This means that 'memories' from our childhood past are generally 'taken at face value' and 'assumed' to be 'real memories' -- unless there is strong case evidence to believe the contrary. 'Erotic-romantic fantasies' are generally assumed to be derived from real experiences and real memories -- usually as 'compensations' meaning 're-working unfinished encounters, events, relationships from our past' which is the work of our 'mastery compulsion' -- unless again there is strong evidence to believe the opposite in terms of supposedly real memories being 'false memories'.
This being the case, seven different types of 'transference-love' relationships are quite common, four of which are 'Oedipal' or 'counter-Oedipal' transference relationships.
These are:
1. A 'Mother-Oedipal Complex (MOC)': Subconsciously or unconsicously falling in love or being attracted to someone who reminds us of our mother;
2. A 'Counter-Mother-Oedipal Complex (CMOC)': Subconsciously or unconsciously falling in love or being attracted to someone who we view as 'opposite' to our mother;
3. A 'Father Oedipal Complex (FOC)': Subconsciously or unconsciously falling in love and/or being attracted to someone who reminds us of our father;
4. A 'Counter-Father-Oedipal Complex (CFOC)': Subconsciously or unconsciously falling in love and/or being attracted to someone who we view as 'opposite' to our father;
5. A 'Mixed Oedipal and/or Counter-Oedipal Complex (MOCOC)': Subconsciously or unconsciously being attracted to someone who reminds us of some combination of our mother, our father, and/or their opposites;
6. A 'Narcissistic Transference Complex': Falling in love and/or being attracted to someone who reminds us of ourselves;
7. 'A Counter Narcissistic Transference Complex': Falling in love and/or being attracted to someone who we view as being 'opposite' to ourselves;
There are also possible sister or brother, grandfather or grandmother, friend, teacher, stranger 'transference complexes'...
We can also turn the 'positve, love transferences' listed above upside down, and/or inside out -- and talk about the possible and/or actual 'negative transference dynamics' attached to each of these different transference relationships.
Almost all transference relationships -- particularly romantic and/or sexual transference relationships -- are 'ambivalent' meaning a combination of 'positive' and 'negative' transferences often attached to the same 'core, nuclear conflicting characteristic or set of characteristics'.
It is a truism in psychology that what attracts us to our 'love interest' often ends up repelling us away from them. (What brings us together can end up tearing us apart.) This means that we are 'psychologically battling' with the same characteristic, or the opposite characteristic, within us.
We all -- at least to the extent that we are all partly or extremely 'neurotic' -- waver between seeking 'homeostatic (dialectic) balance' (or 'equillibrium'), and gravitating back to our own 'custom-made' forms of 'neurotic, compensatory defensive systems' (which tend to 'fly' us back out to our particular 'polar extreme'). Our neurotic transference complex tends to be a 'conflicting intr-psychic and projected interpersonal battle' between the wish for 'psychological balance' and the wish for 'psychological extremism' in line with our own custom-made 'tranference-lifestyle' system of 'compensatory defense' against our own unique 'childhood (or later) narcissistic traumacies and self-esteem injuries'...
Thus, our transference complexes are subconsciously or unconsciously meant to be our own unique form of 'self-psychotherapy', 'self-healing', and/or 'psychic defense' against any possible further, similar traumacy and/or self-esteem injury.
These defensive complexes may be -- indeed, at least partly are -- 'self-defeating' to the extent that we may 'block out' the chance of experiencing social feedback opposite to what we -- via our transference complexes -- have come to expect. This is the 'self-fulfilling' aspect of transference, the part that continually brings us 'what we have come to expect', the 'repetition compulsion' aspect of the transference complex.
Successful self and/or social psychotherapy demands that we 'break through these negative precepts, concepts, constructs, generalizations, assumptions, theories, expectations, self-fulfilling prophecies, fears, anxieties, depressions, forms of self-persecution, and persecuting others...in order to give ourselves a chance to experience something that is indeed opposite -- and much more positively rewarding and stabilizing -- compared to what our past experience has taught us to turn into 'negative self and world stereotypes'.
This is not an easy process. It is like turning -- or trying to turn -- a large oceanliner 180 degrees. It generally takes time and practise to formulate new 'mental-emotional-behavioral' habits...
The longer we have been on this earth, the harder it is to 'turn the oceanliner'.
As the old adage/cliche says, 'Rome wasn't built overnight'.
But -- similar to the worst potential consequences of our negative transfernce complexes -- 'Rome burnt down awfully fast.'
We need to utilize our transference complexes to help us 'achieve loftier heights' and help us to 'love, care, and nourish both ourselves and others'...
Not burn ourselves (and/or others) to the ground...
-- dgb, Feb. 5th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
