Electra complex Electra complex In Neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Jung in his ""Theory of Psychoanalysis"", is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the complex is the girl's phallic stage; a boy's analogous experience is the Oedipus complex. The Electra complex occurs in the third—phallic stage (ages 3–6)—of five psychosexual development stages: (i) the Oral, (ii) the Anal, (iii) the Phallic, (iv) the Latent, and (v) the Genital—in which the source of libido pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant’s body. In
Oedipus complex unconscious guilt. Freud believed that the Oedipal sentiment has been inherited through the millions of years it took for humans to evolve from apes. He based this on his analysis of his feelings attending the play, his anecdotal observations of neurotic or normal children, and on the fact that " Oedipus Rex" was effective on both ancient and modern audiences. (He also claimed that the play "Hamlet" "has its roots in the same soil as "Oedipus Rex"", and that the differences between the two plays are revealing. "In ["Oedipus Rex"] the child’s wishful fantasy that underlies it is brought into