Oedipus complex, Freudian term, drawn from the myth of Oedipus, designating attraction on the part of the child toward the parent of the opposite sex and rivalry and hostility toward the parent of its own. It occurs during the phallic stage of the psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five. Resolution of the Oedipus complex is believed to occur by identification with the parent of the same sex and by the renunciation of sexual interest in the parent of the opposite sex. Freud considered this complex the cornerstone of the superego and the nucleus of all human relationships. Many psychiatrists, while acknowledging the significance of the Oedipal relationships to personality development in our culture, ascribe love and attraction toward one parent and hatred and antagonism toward the other not necessarily to sexual rivalry but to resentment of parental authoritarian power.

Oedipus, in Greek legend, son of Laius, king of Thebes, and his wife, Jocasta. Laius had been warned by an oracle that he was fated to be killed by his own son; he therefore abandoned Oedipus on a mountainside. The baby was rescued, however, by a shepherd and brought to the king of Corinth, who adopted him. When Oedipus was grown, he learned from the Delphic oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He fled Corinth to escape this fate, believing his foster parents to be his real parents. At a crossroad he encountered Laius, quarreled with him, and killed him. He continued on to Thebes, where the sphinx was killing all who could not solve her riddle. Oedipus answered it correctly and so won the widowed queen's hand. The prophecy was thus fulfilled. Two sons, Polynices and Eteocles, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene, were born to the unwittingly incestuous pair. When a plague descended on Thebes, an oracle declared that the only way to rid the land of its pollution was to expel the murderer of Laius. Through a series of painful revelations, brilliantly dramatized by Sophocles in Oedipus Rex, the king learned the truth and in an agony of horror blinded himself. According to Homer, Oedipus continued to reign over Thebes until he was killed in battle; but the more common version is that he was exiled by Creon, Jocasta's brother, and his sons battled for the throne (see Seven against Thebes). In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus is guided in his later wanderings by his faithful daughter, Antigone.

In psychoanalytic theory, a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex. The term was introduced by Sigmund Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams (1899) and is derived from the mythological Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother; its female analogue is the Electra complex. Considered a normal stage in the development of children ages three to five, it ends when the child identifies with the parent of the same sex and represses its sexual instincts. Freud believed that the process of overcoming the Oedipus complex gave rise to the superego.

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In Greek mythology, a king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. In the most familiar version of the story, Laius, king of Thebes, was warned by an oracle that his son would slay him. When his wife, Jocasta, bore a son, he exposed the baby on a mountainside, but the infant Oedipus was saved by a shepherd and adopted by the king of Corinth. In early manhood, as Oedipus traveled toward Thebes, he met Laius, who provoked a quarrel; in the ensuing fracas, Oedipus killed him. He then rid Thebes of the destructive Sphinx by answering her riddle; as a reward he was given the throne of Thebes and the hand of the widowed queen—his mother. They had four children, including Antigone. When at last they learned the truth, Jocasta committed suicide and Oedipus blinded himself and went into exile. Oedipus has served as the hero of many tragedies, most notably Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus.

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