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The Oedipus complex is a concept of psychoanalytic theory. Sigmund Freud introduced the concept in his book Interpretation of Dreams and coined the expression in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men. In Freud's original formulation, the Oedipus complex is a purportedly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which he hates his father and wishes to have sex with his mother. These wishes may be unconscious.
Freud later expanded this idea into the claim that both boys and girls are subject to the Oedipus complex, with different results: boys experience castration anxiety, and girls experience penis envy. Sometimes the term positive Oedipus complex is used to refer to a child's sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and hatred for the same-sex parent, while negative Oedipus complex refers to the desire for the same-sex parent and hatred for the opposite-sex parent. Freud considered that the child's identification with the same-sex parent is the successful outcome of the complex. If unsuccessful, it may lead to neurosis.
The existence of the Oedipus complex is not well supported by empirical evidence. Critics have charged that, by attributing sexual desire to children, the theory has served as a cover-up for sexual abuse of children. Scholars and psychologists have criticized it as incapable of applying to same-sex parents, and as incompatible with the widespread aversion to incest.
It is named for the mythological figure Oedipus. Freud rejected the term Electra complex, introduced by Carl Jung in 1913, as a proposed equivalent complex among young girls. Freud's seduction theory is sometimes seen as a predecessor to the Oedipus complex.