Jocasta complex
{{Short description|Type of sexual desire in psychoanalytic theory}}
File:Cabanel Oedipus Separating from Jocasta.jpg]]
In psychoanalytic theory, the Jocasta complex is the incestuous sexual desire of a mother towards her son.Jon E. Roeckelein. Elsevier's dictionary of psychological theories. Elsevier, 2006. {{ISBN|0-444-51750-2}}. Page 112
Raymond de Saussure introduced the term in 1920 by way of analogy to its logical converse in psychoanalysis, the Oedipus complex, and it may be used to cover different degrees of attachment,R. J. Campbell, Campbell's Psychiatric Dictionary (2009) p. 534 including domineering but asexual mother love – something perhaps particularly prevalent with an absent father.
Origins
The Jocasta complex is named for Jocasta, the Queen of Thebes who forced to marry her son, Oedipus, and eventually committed suicide. The Jocasta complex is similar to the Oedipus complex, in which a child has sexual desire towards their parent(s). The term is a bit of an extrapolation, since in the original story Oedipus and Jocasta were unaware that they were mother and son when they married. The usage in modern contexts involves a son with full knowledge of who his mother is.
Analytic discussion
Theodor Reik saw the "Jocasta mother", with an unfulfilled adult relationship of her own and an over-concern for her child instead, as a prime source of neurosis.Stuart Sutherland, Breakdown (Oxford 1998) p. 156
George Devereux went further, arguing that the child's Oedipal complex was itself triggered by a pre-existing parental complex (Jocasta/Laius).George Devereux, Dreams in Greek Tragedy (1976) pp. 209–10
Eric Berne also explored the other (parental) side of the Oedipus complex, pointing to related family dramas such as "mother sleeping with daughter's boyfriend ... when mother has no son to play Jocasta with".Eric Berne, What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1974) p. 52
With her feminist articulation of Jocasta ComplexAntigone with(out) Jocaste. In: Interrogating Antigone. (2010) pp. 212–228 and Laius complexLaius Complex and Shocks of Maternality. Reading Franz Kafka and Sylvia Plath. Interdisciplinary Handbook of Trauma and Culture. (2016) pp. 279-301 Bracha L. Ettinger criticises the classical psychoanalytic perception of Jocasta, of the maternal, the feminine, and the Oedipal/castration model in relation to the mother-child links.
Cultural analogues
- Atossa, in the Greek tragedy The Persians, has been seen as struggling in her dreams with a Jocasta complex.George Devereux, Dreams in Greek Tragedy (1976) p. 17
- Some American folk-tales often feature figures, like Jocasta, expressing maternal desire for their sons.L. Edmunds/A. Dundes, Oedipus: A Folklore Casebook (1995) p. 255
See also
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References
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Further reading
- Matthew Besdine, "The Jocasta Complex, Mothering and Genius", Psychoanalytic Review 55 (1968), 259–77
- Christiane Olivier, Jocasta's Children: The Impact of the Mother (1989)
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Category:Psychoanalytic terminology