Being in love with the image of your mother or father

[Mr Radioactive]

In the Oedipus complex a boy falls in love with his mother. But the boy forgets this as he grows to be an adult. Girls go through a different process, but basically girls fall in love with the father, and they forget this too as they grow up.
There is a theory that this experience determines a person's sexual preference when they're mature. A person will be attracted to someone who reminds them of their mother or their father in some way. For example, you might be attracted to a man because he looks like your father, or you could fall in love with a doctor because your mother was a doctor.
Does anyone think this idea has any credibility? When you think about the people who you have been involved with, do any of them resemble your mother or your father? For people who think this idea is true, does it affect how you think about prospective partners?

 

[Sky]

I think that Freud had some peculiar ideas. And my husband and father are almost polar opposites.

 

[Holdfast]

OP is a pretty gross oversimplication of both the Oedipal and Electra complexes. It's not about physical resemblances, and not even necessarily just job roles. It's more about undue attachment to the psychological image imprinted by the parent of the opposite gender on the child during development.

As a psychoanalytic model, it certainly has utility under some circumstances, but like most models, if it used without thought and as a blunt universal instrument, it can disguise other more important issues.

To discuss it more would require more words than I'm currently inclined to write, unfortunately, but there are some very interesting implications of both theories.

 

[1001001]

If you look up Object Relations Theory, you'll find some interesting stuff on the issue, and how many psychoanalysts moved on from the Oedipus Complex to more dynamic developmental concerns.

 

[RJDiogenes]

None of the women I've ever been interested in have resembled my Mother on any level. However, I had a friend back in the 80s who freaked out when I pointed out how much his girlfriend resembled his Mother, and he dropped her like a hot potato.

 

[An Officer]

I actively seek out those who remind me the least of my parents!

I have never set much store by Freud or psychoanalysts in general. I don't believe they understand much more about the human condition than an average lay person, they have simply mastered how to make money out of pretending they do.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Holdfast will now crush your ego and destroy your mind, you know it, right?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I don't think I go for people who remind me of my parents necessarily (in fact, some I've been interested in have been quite different). That being said, the personalities of my parents aren't all that diverse from my own personality in many ways. So it makes sense to be interested in someone with a somewhat similar personality to mine.

 

[1001001]

I actively seek out those who remind me the least of my parents!

I have never set much store by Freud or psychoanalysts in general.

I am not a psychoanalyst, but I will defend Freud to a certain degree.

Sometimes I think criticising Freud is like criticising Henry Ford because the first car only went 15 miles an hour. Most of us in the field have to acknowledge the depth and breadth of his contributions, even if they are not widely used now. Much of his best work was so revolutionary at the time....but now is common knowledge. Everyone knows the basics of Id/Ego/Superego.

Like many great minds he overstated the universality of his theories, and failed to recognize cultural influences. He also didn't get women very well (but hell, who does? ).

The Oedipal stuff has been portrayed in popular culture as being much different than I think Freud intended. And as I pointed out earlier, psychodynamic theory has evolved a fair amount since then.

Still, I think we owe a tremendous debt to the good Doctor.

I don't believe they understand much more about the human condition than an average lay person, they have simply mastered how to make money out of pretending they do.

Q: How many psychoanalysts does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one, but it will take 7 years and cost $100,000.

 

[Mr Awe]

I don't think this theory holds any water. People don't want to be married to their parents. Just doesn't work that way.

However, that's not say that parents don't influence the selection at all. For example, research shows that girls who have a great relationship with their father tend to have higher expectations for potential husbands and, therefore, enter into more stable relationships.

Mr Awe

 

[An Officer]

Holdfast will now crush your ego and destroy your mind, you know it, right?

Oh, I won't deny anyone a living. As they say, there's one born every minute. I salute Holdfast, the poor man has a suit habit to fund, you know.

*Boxing gloves at the ready*

Q: How many psychoanalysts does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one, but it will take 7 years and cost $100,000.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Q: How many psychoanalysts does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one, but it will take 7 years and cost $100,000.

The other punchline is "Just one, but it has to want to change."

Then there's the studio version of the lightbulb joke...

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Sometimes I think criticising Freud is like criticising Henry Ford because the first car only went 15 miles an hour. Most of us in the field have to acknowledge the depth and breadth of his contributions, even if they are not widely used now. Much of his best work was so revolutionary at the time....but now is common knowledge. Everyone knows the basics of Id/Ego/Superego.

Like many great minds he overstated the universality of his theories, and failed to recognize cultural influences. He also didn't get women very well....

Well said.

 

[propita]

I don't think this theory holds any water. People don't want to be married to their parents. Just doesn't work that way.

However, that's not say that parents don't influence the selection at all. For example, research shows that girls who have a great relationship with their father tend to have higher expectations for potential husbands and, therefore, enter into more stable relationships.

Mr Awe

I sought a man who was similar to my father in certain respects: intelligent, a high sense of honor, and not “skinny.” Seems a little general for an Electra complex.

Yet, there are people (as posted above) who purposefully seek someone completely unlike their parent. I understand this if, in that person’s opinion, the parent is so unworthy of respect OR their personalities are otherwise incompatible.

I figured that some people sought that which they don’t have, but that over time, the very trait that attracted them now repels them because it was always incompatible but “love” covered it over. F’rinstance, a shy person is attracted to another’s vivaciousness and highly-expressive personality. But the shy person actually prefers low-energy situations and the other person needs the higher-stimulation of energetic situations. Over the years, this just becomes incompatible--the shy person refuses to go out night after night, the vivaciousness doesn’t want to stay home all the time. Both perfectly understandable; neither in the wrong, just mis-matched.

 

[star]

I don't think this theory holds any water. People don't want to be married to their parents. Just doesn't work that way.

However, that's not say that parents don't influence the selection at all. For example, research shows that girls who have a great relationship with their father tend to have higher expectations for potential husbands and, therefore, enter into more stable relationships.

Mr Awe

This is me. I have an excellent relationship with my father (and though I call myself a "daddy's girl" it's not the unhealthy kind). He was the measuring stick that I held every guy I dated up against. My husband won the prize. The only things they have in common is a quirky sense of humor and unfailing loyalty to people and ideas that are dear to them. Otherwise, they are not really alike at all -- neither in personality nor looks (way not alike in looks). However, they both like each other a great deal and respect one another.

I think our parents are a gauge that let us know, if we are self-aware enough, what we desire in a companion. Sometimes our parents are examples of what we absolutely don't want (and there are qualities in my father, as much as I adore him, that I wouldn't be able to stand in a husband) and sometimes there are good things that we like in our parents that we might also like in a significant other.

But I will also agree that it is a theory that doesn't come close to covering the wide spectrum of people.

On the other hand, I think it is far more common that a young child considers marrying one of their parents when they grow up. I told my father when I was small that I was going to marry him. To my little mind it seemed logical as he was a single father at the time, and therefore unattached. Both of my sons assured me that they would marry me when they grew up as well. When I asked each of them what of their father, my oldest son seemed to think he wouldn't be around then and my younger said something along the lines of "when I grow it it will be my turn to be married to you." Whether or not our daughters had similar conversations with my husband, I can't say. They certainly didn't talk to me about it.

But I think these ideas come into little minds as they begin to understand abstract concepts like love. They don't yet understand the difference between familial love and romantic love. And of course, my only experience comes from children with relatively healthy relationships with their parents, so I can't say how a neglected or abused child might feel on the matter.

 

[1001001]

Freud talked about the Oedipal Complex occuring around ages 3-5. Succesful navigation of the conflict by identification with the father resolved the issue. He was not talking about adults with mature sexual desires wanting to marry their mothers.

As I said earlier, I am not a psychoanalyst myself (I practice REBT), but it's not really that bizarre to imagine children learning how to function in "psychological environments" created by their parents, and then seeking either to replicate or resolve conflicts from those environments in adulthood. In terms of relating, we may tend to master the style of relating with our parents and feel comfortable with it.

I still think if anyone is interested, you should check out Object Relations Theory as an example of psychoanalysis' evolution from concepts like the Oedipal Complex. It's very complex, but very rich.

 

[Holdfast]

Q: How many psychoanalysts does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Just one, but it will take 7 years and cost $100,000.

The other punchline is "Just one, but it has to want to change."

That's always been my preferred version of the gag too. Hits the nerve a bit more accurately.





To address a suggestion upthread, what psychologists and psychiatrists have that the average lay person does not, is a broad array of different interpretative and therapeutic models with potential applicablility to varying individual situations, as well as greater experience in encouraging someone to consider applying the model.

These are skills and techniques that come from the broader opportunities available to practice them within clinical work, with its facility to bounce ideas around in a compartmentalised way with a supervisor, that an average person would not be able to do in their own daily life. It's something any average lay person with aptitude for the work could learn to do, but is unlikely to do so spontaneously without a framework for developing the skills.

To come full circle to the OP, it's the difference between knowing what the Oedipal Complex is from pop culture or skimming a book or two, and actually having to think through its implications and interactions with other models and whether it's applicable at all in an given individual case. As digits points out, there are many evolutions in thinking and many other models.

An interesting analogy to demonstrate the nature of therapeutic work versus a friend/advisor would be the difference between a passable home baker and a professional patissier; or between someone who can hem a pair of trousers and someone who can cut and tailor a bespoke suit.

While the task is relatively simple and straightforward, the core skills are such that either party could do it, but when it comes to more complex situations, coming in purely from a lay perspective is likely to either result in abject failure or making things dramatically worse. Even if things work out, improvements may well be founded on changes with underlying shifting foundations.

More fundamentally, there's also the added benefit to having a professional able to emotionally compartmentalise and dissect an issue rather than being embedded within it, even if just as a friend.

Coming back to Freud specifically for a second, the man remains a giant of the field, and rightly so. While much of his work has either been diluted or superseded, there is still the fact that he did it at all. I happen to have more natural sympathy for Jungian interpretations, albeit modified some significant ways, but Freud cannot and should not be whitewashed from our understanding of interpersonal dynamics. Without a trace of understatement, he changed the way a world thought.

 

[1001001]

Coming back to Freud specifically for a second, the man remains a giant of the field, and rightly so. While much of his work has either been diluted or superseded, there is still the fact that he did it at all. I happen to have more natural sympathy for Jungian interpretations, albeit modified some significant ways, but Freud cannot and should not be whitewashed from our understanding of interpersonal dynamics. Without a trace of understatement, he changed the way a world thought.

Agreed. I don't use his theories, but.....I use his theories. All of us shrinks do, whether we know it or not. That's how fundamental he is to the field.

I like some of Jung's stuff, especially the Anima/Animus work (I'm a Sophia!).

 

[scotpens]

I am not a psychoanalyst, but I will defend Freud to a certain degree. . . Most of us in the field have to acknowledge the depth and breadth of his contributions, even if they are not widely used now. Much of his best work was so revolutionary at the time....but now is common knowledge. Everyone knows the basics of Id/Ego/Superego.

But Freud got a lot of other stuff totally wrong. Like the concept of penis envy. He thought women had it.

Putting personality traits aside, I wouldn't mind dating a woman who physically resembled my mother when she was young. Because my mother was a hottie! But I suppose that's a topic for another thread. Probably in TNZ.

 

[An Officer]

Holdfast, that's a very good argument for your profession.

Still, it's all about the intent for me, is it a genuine altruistic helping hand, or is it about pay by the hour and making a career and name for yourself (I'm not talking about you personally, of course, but the practice in general). I will however concede that there may be many who enter the profession to help others, just as many are there to help themselves.