Somebody in Yahoo!Answers recently asked the following very broad question: " How does Freud, Jung or other psychoanalyst explain the development/ manifestation of the Oedipus/ Electra complex within a gay?" It isn't only very broad, it is ungrammatical. The verb should be either "do" or "did." If we think of the proper names as shorthand for their ideas/texts, then present-tense "do" is better. Anyway, it is a fascinating question, though perhaps of diminishing significance as the authority of those names/texts recedes. I'm not scholar enough to take it all on, but I did answer a bit of it as best I could, thus: M y understanding is that in Freudian theory, sexual identity is determined in adolescence, as the 'latency phase' comes to an end. A growing boy 'should' resolve his oedipal conflict by identification with his father, so his father is no longer a rival, and by the development of a sentimental affection ...
