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
Childhood amnesia memories of traumatic events (i.e. sexual abuse by caretakers) that occurred in the psychosexual development of every child. This supposedly led to the repression of the majority of memories from the first years of life when children were supposedly obsessed with exploring their sexuality. Notably, Freud himself abandoned this theory in the late 1800s. Freudian theory, including his explanation for childhood amnesia, has been criticized for extensive use of anecdotal evidence rather than scientific research, and his observations that allow for multiple interpretations. While Freudian psychosexual theory is widely debunked, there are some insights to be made into the effect