castration complex

in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the whole combination of the child’s unconscious feelings and fantasies associated with being deprived of the phallus, which in boys means the loss of the penis and in girls the belief that it has already been removed. It derives from the discovery that girls have no penis and is closely tied to the Oedipus complex.

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Psychology term of the day

January 19th 2025

imageless thought

thinking that occurs without the aid of images or sensory content. The Würzburg school upheld the existence of imageless thought on the basis of introspective reports, such as experimental participants’ stated ability to name a piece of fruit without picturing it. Edward Bradford Titchener and others in the structural school opposed this view (see structuralism). See Bewusstseinslage.