Complex (psychology)

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A complex is a structure in the unconscious that is objectified as an underlying theme—like a power or a status—by grouping clusters of emotions, memories, perceptions and wishes in response to a threat to the stability of the self. In psychoanalysis, it is antithetical to drives.[1][2]

  1. ^ Marriott, David S. (2021). Lacan Noir: Lacan and Afro-pessimism. The Palgrave Lacan Series. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 55. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-74978-1. ISBN 978-3-030-74977-4. S2CID 242148951. Complex [:] It is antithetical to that of trieb[.] [I]t is a structure, just as it is a form, an activity. It represents ... experiences, behaviors, etc. ... what gets fixed, in the complex, is not reality as it is represented, but that which gets to be hallucinated as both a missing object and a 'state of objectification' (LFC, 21).
  2. ^ Schultz & Schultz 2009