In 1913, Carl Jung introduced a term to describe something he had observed in his female patients: deep attachment to the father, quiet hostility toward the mother. There is just one twist. Sigmund Freud, the theorist most closely tied to this idea, spent much of his career trying to distance himself from it. The electra complex is one of psychology’s...

A four year old boy declares he is going to marry his mom, then side eyes his dad for the rest of dinner. Sigmund Freud did not see a passing tantrum. He saw evidence for one of psychology’s most debated ideas, the oedipus complex. Freud argued this unconscious dynamic between boys, mothers, and fathers, playing out between ages three and...

Picture a nine-year-old who was inseparable from her best friend a year ago suddenly declaring boys “gross,” disappearing into hours of Lego building, and going quiet the moment anything remotely romantic comes up. Freud had a name for this shift: the latency stage of development, and he argued it is not a lull so much as one of the busiest...