Castration Complex Origin of the Neurosis?

by Lida Prypchan

Both the Oedipus and castration complexes are very likely to be found in human societies and must be considered as a normal stage in the development of children.

Castration is understood as the removal of the testicles.  In psychoanalysis, castration means the removal or loss of the penis.

It is worth remembering at what age in development fears and fantasies about castration take place.  Freudian theory emphasizes a series of stages, such as: oral, anal and genital.  In the oral stage, newborns find pleasure in the mouth.  In the anal stage, during the first year of age, satisfaction derives from the anal sensation of defecation.  But it is at the end of the first year of age, when children learn to control their anal sphincter, when they grant more importance to the anus.  Both stages comprise the pregenital stage, which lasts until three years of age.  It is followed by the genital stage, beginning at three years of age, in which boys grant importance to their penis.  This stage lasts until five years of age.  During this stage, boys turn their penis into an object of sexual interest.  Sexual attraction towards the mother is associated with jealousy and fear of the father, who becomes a sexual rival.  This constitutes the Oedipus complex and it is in this stage that the castration complex starts to become important.  Freud thought that the fear of castration was awakened at a very early age by the threats and punishments arising from masturbation.  When the boy is told that sexual interest in the mother is also taboo, he begins to believe that if he persists in this interest, he may be punished with castration.

The castration complex in men is extremely deep and persistent.  According to some legends and myths, castration is horrifying.  In Phrygian mythology, Attis, the god of vegetation, bled to death after having castrated himself.

Both the Oedipus and castration complexes are very likely found in all human societies.  And they must be considered as a normal stage in the development of boys.  Freud stated that the castration complex was the main reason, but not the only one, for the mechanism of repression and that it not only affected integrity of personality, but rather that it could also lead to neurotic manifestations.  He believed that symptomatic formation in phobic, hysterical and obsessive neuroses could be traced back to anxiety about castration.  But this is no longer believed.  Neurosis is a social or cultural problem that is much more complex than what Freud thought, and he did not give importance to the social environment in which his neurotic patients operated.  This is why his theory of neurosis comes up short, without denying that it opened the way for men now engaged in this area to find new interpretations of the problem of neurosis.  

Alfred Adler, a colleague of Freud, criticized this Freudian theory of castration.  According to Adler, based on the central idea of ​​his work "Individual Psychology," boys, threatened with castration by a stronger rival, can counter their feelings of sexual and physical inferiority through a struggle for domination of others, power and self-confidence or sexual conquest.

Melanie Klein expanded on and propagated Freud’s theory.  According to Klein, fear of castration is experienced from an earlier age than that proposed by Freud, both in boys and in girls, and that at that age they are already aware of the genitals of both sexes.