Sigmund Freud, Der Untergang des Oedipuskomplexes [The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex]

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.2: German-language Writing and Culture: Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, 800-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Domains

Psychoanalysis

Dates

First circulation or publication 1924

Places

Czech Republic (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Essays/ Lectures (any)

Resources

This short essay was first published in German in the Internationale Zeitung für Psychoanalyze 10:3 (1924), 245-52. It was first translated into English by Joan Riviere as “The Passing of the Oedipus Complex” in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 5:4 (1924), 419-24, but in the Standard Edition it was entitled “The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex” and it is by that name that it is usually known.

The essay is significant for its clarification of Freud's thinking on the different relationship of males and females to the Oedipus complex and on how and why they decide to abandon the complex at the time of coming to terms with an adult identity. As Ernest Jones notes in the Standard Edition (XIX, 1961, 171), the essay elaborates on ideas put forward in the first part of Chapter...

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

538 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Der Untergang des Oedipuskomplexes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 November 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=28507, accessed 09 June 2026.]