0.2 Sigmund freud  (Page 22/37)

As we begin to address the castration complex and penis envy, it is important to realize that Freud’s phallic stage is entirely focused on the penis, for both boys and girls. As the libido becomes focused on the genitals, a boy begins to manipulate his penis. He experiences no shame, and even enjoys displaying his body (Freud, 1905/1995). As a counterpart to this joy in his own sexuality, children are often curious about seeing other children’s bodies. This creates a very different experience for boys and girls. When boys see a girl’s body, they believe the absence of a penis means that the girl has been castrated. This leads to a fear of the same thing happening to them, and creates castration anxiety, which in adulthood can lead to a castration complex. When girls see a boy’s body they are fully prepared to recognize the penis, and they become envious of it. Indeed, this envy can become strong enough that the girl wishes she was a boy (Freud, 1905/1995). Since she cannot be a boy, she begins to seek an alternative, either her father or a child of her own.

As Freud continued to develop his theory of the phallic stage, he included a broader perspective beyond the castration complex: the Oedipus complex. A boy’s first love object is his mother, the one who feeds him and attends to all of his needs. This is only natural. As his libido becomes focused on his genitalia, however, this takes on the sexual desire that became so controversial. Keeping in mind that Freud did not believe that children understand the adult reality of their desires (much of it is unconscious), he described their behaviors as obvious evidence of their desire: boys talk about loving and marrying their mother, they persistently pursue being in her presence when she is dressing, they want to be in bed with her at night, etc. (Freud, 1917/1966). This eventually leads to conflict with the father, and with it the castration anxiety described above. Since there is no satisfactory resolution, given that the father is much more powerful than the child, the boy is compelled to give up the Oedipus complex, to repress it. In the healthiest condition, the Oedipus complex is completely destroyed in the id, and gives rise to a severe superego (Freud, 1933/1965). This repression, or destruction, of the Oedipus complex allows the boy to transition into the latency period.

For girls, the Oedipus complex takes a very different course. A girl’s first love object is also her mother, since again it is the mother who provides most of the childcare. Once the girl realizes that she does not have a penis she develops penis envy, and she must undertake a change in her love object to her father, the one who can provide her with the desired penis. The mother is then seen as a rival for the father’s penis, and indeed as someone who has already received all that the girl wants from her father. This can intensify feelings of hostility toward the mother. Consequently, she may enter into the Oedipus complex feeling that it is a refuge or safe haven. However, the girl does not fear castration, since she has no penis to begin with, and without the fear of castration leading to repression of the Oedipus complex there is no motivation for the girl to move into the latency period (Freud, 1933/1965). Freud believed that girls remain in the Oedipus complex, and thus the phallic stage, for an indeterminate period of time, and that they cannot ever completely resolve it. Adding one more point of controversy, the only way in which girls can shift from an initially masculine situation (the mother as love object) to a feminine situation (the father as love object) is if they replace their penis envy with the desire for a child, given the ancient symbolic equivalence between the penis and giving birth (Freud, 1933/1965).