Maternal Narcissism and the Oedipus Complex

It is a remarkable fact that the most commonplace phenomenon often escapes our attention in our zeal for elaborate theories. Such a commonplace is the normal mother's narcissistic identification with and cathexis of her child, as part of her own body, that she can adore. Freud (4) considered the mother-son attachment as the least ambivalent of object relations. Not only is this adoration vital for the mother, but more so for the child. Mothers who reject their children as deformed and inferior bring into existence neurotic and criminal personalities, or if they have genius they may become Byrons, Schopenhauers, or Balzacs. Renaissance art with unerring insight saw the mother-child unity as adorable, as the source of bliss and security.

Since every woman's child is more wonderful than every other's, it follows that every mother expects her own child to be more wonderful than her mother-in-law's. Freud (5) remarks that a mother with penis envy may transfer to her son all the ambition suppressed in herself. Such mothers have suffered deep narcissistic injury which we term the castration complex, and while some expect their offspring to be malformed, feeble-minded, or weaklings, others load upon their sons the pride and expectancy formerly devoted to their masculine strivings. Hence the separation from the child, and his independence and growth, are not welcomed as by a healthy mother, but become a source of anxiety, a threat as of a loss of a limb, or of their very existence. The independence of the son becomes another castration, a repetition of the trauma of their penislessness. When the son identifies with his father in any way, such mothers are threatened not reassured, because the child must be part of the mother's own body image under her absolute possession and control. Such women find the closeness to their sons more important and rewarding than any relation to the father who is often unconsciously selected as an inferior passive instrument for the wo