Father complex in psychology is a complex - a group of unconscious associations, or a strong unconscious impulses - which specifically pertains to the image or archetype of the father. These impulses may be either positive (admiring and seeking out older father figures) or negative (distrusting or fearful).
Freud, and psychoanalysis after him, saw 'a Father complex - a male child's feeling of ambivalence towards his father' - as 'one of the aspects of the Oedipus complex'.[1] By contrast, 'Jung's view was that either a male or a female could have a positive or negative...father complex'.[2]
Contents |
Use of the term father complex emerged from the fruitful collaboration of Freud and Jung during the first decade of the twentieth century - the time when Freud wrote of neurotics 'that, as Jung has expressed it, they fall ill of the same complexes against which we normal people struggle as well'.[3]
In 1909, Freud made "The Father Complex and the Solution of the Rat Idea" the centrepiece of his study of the Rat Man - placing 'a renewal of his ancient struggle against his father's authority'[4] at the heart of his compulsions. In 1911 he wrote that 'in the case of Schreber we find ourselves once again on the familiar ground of the father-complex';[5] while in between, in 1910, Freud had written that "in male patients the most important resistances in the treatment seem to be derived from the father complex and to express themselves in fear of the father, in defiance of the father and in disbelief of the father".[6] The father complex also stood at the conceptual core of Totem and Taboo (1912-3); and even after the break with Jung, when "complex" became a term to be handled with care among Freudians, 'the father complex w[as] very much in the ascendent in Freud's theorizing'[7] in the twenties - 'the father complex...coloured by a peculiar ambivalence'[8] appearing prominently in The Future of an Illusion (1927), for example.
Others in Freud's circle wrote freely of the complex's 'ambivalent feelings and aims. On the one hand I wished to punish the bad father; on the other I hoped to be welcomed back as the prodigal son'.[9] However by 1946, and Otto Fenichel's compendious summary of the first psychoanalytic half-century, the father complex tended to be subsumed under the broader scope of the Oedipus complex as a whole, as with the way 'certain types of authoritative fathers by their behavior block any possibility of the child's becoming independent. A patient, forty years of age, with an intense ambivalent fixation upon his tyrannical father, having had a cold, received a wire from his father from a distant city: "Because of uncertain weather, do not leave house today"'.[10]
Jung had also continued (after the two men's split) to use the father complex to illuminate father/son relations, as with the father-dependent patient Jung termed 'a fils a papa. His father is still too much the guarantor of his existence'.[11] Jung noted for instance how 'in men, a positive father-complex very often produces a certain credulity with regard to authority'.[12] However he and his followers were equally prepared to use the concept to explain female psychology, describing how 'a negative father complex, for example, is likely to make one feel that all men are harsh, judgmental, emotionally violent and unwilling to work cooperatively'.[13]
Freud and Jung were both more than willing to use the father complex as a tool to illuminate their own personal relations. As their early intimacy deepened, for example, Jung had 'found himself impelled to ask Freud "to let me enjoy your friendship not as that of equals but as that of father and son"'.[14] In retrospect, however, Jungians would tend to concede that (beneath a positive facade) 'Jung had a negative father complex and could not refrain from questioning the "father"'s ideas'.[15] But while through most of their relationship 'Jung preserved the stance of the favorite son, loving, only intermittently unruly',[16] ultimately the complex exploded in both their faces, Jung accusing Freud of 'treating your pupils like patients....Meanwhile you are sitting pretty on top, as father'.[17]
'Having for years used the term "father complex", and having supplied flamboyant evidence in his own conduct to support the theory, Jung now rejected it as Viennese name calling'.[18] To give a 'Freudian interpretation...[of] the short years of intimacy with his "father" in Vienna: the oedipal son had struggled free, at once suffering and inflicting suffering in the process'.[19]
Whereas the father complex had originally been evolved to deal with the heavy Victorian patriarch of the early twentieth century, by the latter's close there was instead a postmodern 'preoocupation with the lost authority of the father, this nostalgia for paternal authority'.[20] With the shift from Freud's emphasis on the father to object relations theory's stress upon the mother, what psychoanalysis tended to single out became 'the switched-off father...a search for a father'.[21] It has even been suggested from a French perspective that 'the expression father complex has almost entirely disappeared from usage in contemporary psychoanalysis';[22] but while among post-Lacanians 'the metapsychological conception of the father and the "father complex" (Vatercomplex) itself varies',[23] it still remains a matter of considerable debate. A postmodern dictionary of psychoananalysis is nonetheless more likely to have an entry for 'Father hunger: term coined by James Herzog (1980, 2001) to denote the growing son's longing and need for contact (including physical contact) with his father or a father substitute'[24] than for "Father complex" itself.
Jungians such as Erich Neumann would use the concept for longer to explore the father/son relationship and its implications for issues of authority, noting how 'a reactionary identification with the father, which lacks the living, dialectical struggle between the generations' could breed a 'sterile conservatism'[25]: 'the reverse side of this father complex - which by no means implies liberation from it - is to be found in the eternal son, the permanent revolutionary'.[26] They were also able to apply the same analysis to the type of woman whose 'negative father complex made it impossible for her to welcome [a man's] suggestions' - pointing out how 'an authority complex can derive from the father complex'[27] unless the two can be strictly delimited. The authority complex is indeed a feature widely to be observed, especially perhaps in men whose father was oppressive or powerful. With time, however, it may be possible to cease to exaggerate the influence of the archetypal "father"; and to accept the archetype - and with it one's own authority - within oneself.
However Jungians as well as psychoanalysts began to explore "father hunger" as the century wore on, emphasising how 'the pangs of such parent hunger can be powerful indeed', as one is 'drawn repeatedly to..those unactualised parts of the father archetype concerned with loving guidance and support in the outer world'.[28] The answer men are offered is 'to recognize that the way to find the father they lost is to find him in themselves and then to give him to the next generation'[29] - a 'move into generativity...the shift from: What will I get? to: What can I offer? '.[30]
Eating disorders expert Margo D. Maine introduced the concept of “father hunger” in her book Father Hunger: Fathers, Daughters and Food,[31] with particular emphasis on the relationship with the daughter. Maine examined the longing that all children have for connection with fathers, and how an unmet father hunger influences disordered eating and other mental illnesses.
In contemporary psychoanalytic theory, James M. Herzog’s Father Hunger: Explorations with Adults and Children[32] addresses the unconscious longing experienced by many males and females for an involved father; and the importance of fatherly provisions for both sons and daughters during their respective developmental stages is examined in the writings of Michael J. Diamond (see My Father Before Me, WW Norton, 2007).[33]
While the notion of the "Father complex" may have moved somewhat into the psychoanalytical background, its presence in the wider culture has continued to flourish. Czeslaw Milosz noted for example of 'Einstein...everything about him appealed to my father complex, my yearning for a protector and leader'.[34] Not everybody was so enthusiastic about the complex, however. When his partner told D. H. Lawrence '"It's the father complex, it's..." "Rubbish, Frieda!", Lawrence jumped in. "You have a fool's complex...with your smatter of Freud"'.[35]
'Constable had to destroy the landscape as an object to be related to in the way his father intended for him....He destroyed the identity offered to him, but it survives, refound in his identity as an artist'[36]
Bob Dylan's choice of name has itself been linked to the father complex. '"Bob Dylan" is a made-up name, and according to one theory represents the son's assassination of his father...an originating murder to make a name for himself '.[37] Only a couple of decades after that choice of name, however, in his post-Sixties 'battle to escape canonization..."It's rough times", Bob commented during one of our talks. "Everybody needs a father"'.[38]