Chapter 48 Section 8 Unconsciously "seeking a husband" is actually looking for a father

Whether Freud was sick or not is controversial even in the field of psychology.However, Freud's influence on human civilization for a century is beyond the reach of anyone who wants to belittle him. Freud is undoubtedly the most famous psychiatrist in the world.When I first started studying clinical psychology, I had a special intimacy with Freud's theory, and this intimacy turned into a kind of surprise and admiration as my clinical experience increased.The Electra complex in Freud's theory exists so widely, and its potential influence on marriage is so obvious, I would like to promote the influence of Freud's Electra complex on marriage into such a general formula: marriage is usually a symbolic expression of a potential Electra-Oedipus union between a man and a woman.In short, the inner symbol of most marriages is that girls look for their fathers and boys look for their mothers.

Unconsciously "seeking a husband" is actually looking for a father Debbie is a 50-year-old white woman who suffers from severe depression.After four months of weekly psychotherapy, Debbie's symptoms of depression improved dramatically.But her mood was still up and down, not very stable.I noticed that her husband always accompanied her to the clinic. When Debbie was interviewing me, her husband always sat quietly in the lobby of the clinic and waited patiently.It was a rare occasion, and I couldn't help but compliment Debbie on her husband's kindness. "Why do you say he is good? After 16 years of marriage, I feel that it has come to an end." Debi sighed.

"What went wrong in your marriage? Did he treat you badly, or did he abuse you?" "He's always been nice to me, but he doesn't get along with my mom. They're always at odds, and he doesn't respect my mom." Debbie emphasized her husband's conflicts with her mom, and how he was boring. "So, you want to divorce your husband?" "I want to do this, but I am completely dependent on him financially at the moment, and I have no way to leave if I want to." After listening to Debi's statement, I just used ordinary cognitive therapy to help Debi adjust her one-sided concept, and did not try to do psychoanalytic inner dissection.Debbie's attitude towards her husband is still life-or-death, and when he expresses his love to her, she feels indifferent and loses interest in sex.The reason she still lives with her husband is because she is not financially independent.This situation lasted for several weeks, and I just let it go without making too much effort.One day Debbie said to me that she wanted to talk about his father.I said yes, and Debbie started talking about his father.

"My father was an alcoholic and he beat my mother and my sister." "how about you?" "He never hits me, he especially dotes on me." "What kind of favor?" I want to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of her father-daughter relationship. "Well, it's nothing really, he just doesn't hit me. He's a drunk, a hard drunk. He never kisses my mom, and he never makes any kind of affection. The only thing my parents stay the same at home is, They quarreled every day. After the fight, sometimes my father would lock my mother out of the door, and I would sneak out and help my mother open the door when my father started snoring."

"You have become your mother's protector." "Yes, I am my mother's protector, but my mother and I also have constant quarrels." "Debbie, do you realize that you're in a triangle with your parents where you're actually taking your mom's wife's place, you get your dad's love, and your mom needs yours like a pissed daughter Protection." In this strange triangle of Debbie's childhood, Debbie actually symbolically fulfilled her Electra complex, but she naturally felt the guilt of excluding her mother.On the other hand, Debi's father is a cold and inexpressive person, he never hugs or kisses Debi, which makes Debi feel lost.

In the triangle relationship between Debbie and her parents, we can see the following relationship patterns: Parental relationship: apathy, quarrels, violence. Father-daughter relationship: indifferent, non-controversial, peaceful. Mother-daughter relationship: indifference, quarrel, tranquility. In the three relationships, indifference and indifference are the basic tones, which are exactly the tones of melancholy.Because this is the basic color of the whole family, Debbie has long been in a state of numbness to this color.What she cares about is not to change the basic tone of the family, but to try to make the quarrel and violence disappear in the family.Because her father's gentle attitude towards her gave her the confidence to eliminate quarrels and violence in the family.

Debbie's wish for her father to treat her mother well was not fulfilled by her father, but she also felt a heavy sense of guilt because of her usurping the throne in the triangle relationship with her parents. What can Debbie do? What Debbie can do is to use her marriage to find a "father" again, and let this "father" make up for the traumatic parental relationship.Debbie's current husband, her third husband, is 20 years older than Debbie.Her husband treats her well but cannot get along with her mother.Her husband's super-aged age and his contradictory attitude towards her mother and daughter just fit her father's characteristics.When the "little dad" she specially found was the same as the original "old dad", unable to fulfill her expectations for a harmonious relationship between her parents, her inner struggle and depression had nowhere to go.At the age of half a hundred, it is basically impossible for her to use her marriage to realize the unfulfilled dream she had in her father.

After dissecting her relationship with her father, Debbie realizes that she has been unconsciously looking for a father, not a lover.She rejected her husband's initiative to show love because she didn't treat her husband as a husband.No matter how hard her poor husband tried, he couldn't give Debbie what he wanted.Because he didn't understand that Debi's positioning of him was half husband and half father, and this positioning contradicted his subconscious mind.When she saw this clearly, she was relieved and had a new understanding of marriage.