The Madonna/Whore Complex

Sex without love; love without sex. This is how the 'Madonna/Whore' complex manifests itself within the psyche of men around the world. This psychodynamic theory, first suggested and explained by Freud in 1912, can have dire impacts for both the state of relationships and the mental health of those involved.

 

The theory involves a childhood where a distant, cold mother raised the sufferer. This can cause unfulfilled needs of intimacy in later life. Combined with the Oedipus complex (and the fear of castration), the complex manifests itself when he feels the same affection for a woman he sexually desires as he did with his mother as a child. The resulting conflict between desire and fear results in the sufferer placing women into two categories: 'Madonna' (women to admire) and 'Whore' (women who can fufill sexual desires). The 'Madonna' figure seeked by sufferers often has a character reminiscent of their childhood mothers, as they long for the intimacy that was never received as a child. However, the unconscious mind will reject the idea of sexual encounters with the 'Madonna' figure, due to the 'mother figure' status they have within the mind of a sufferer. They will equate sex with a 'Madonna' figure to incest, and are unable to satisfy the sexual desire of these women. On the other hand, 'Whore' figures are women who, through the eyes of complex sufferers, are seen as 'bad' and 'filthy', and not worthy of true love. These women are where sexual desires are released and satisfied. Feelings can never develop past a lustful stage as they are not saintlike virginal characters; they are perceived to be 'tainted' with sexual prowess, and are not worthy of the respect a Madonna 'mother' figure has. 

 

This concept unfortunately has major implications for society. For example, the woman of a relationship with a complex sufferer could become frustrated over the lack of sexual satisfaction from her husband. This could damage her self-esteem, as she blames herself for his inability or reluctance to make love to her. This could lead to depression, a serious mental disorder. In addition, it may cause relationship problems, especially if the man is going to Whore figures for sexual satisfaction. Adultery and divorce could increase due to the complex, having impacts economically (the money spent on divorce cases could make people poorer) and socially (more single parents/depressed parents due to divorces could have negative effects on any children brought about by the failed relationship). As you can see, the complex has negative implications for both the mind and wider society. 

 

Therapies can be used in an attempt to treat the condition, although the success of therapy may vary. Many men nay find it hard to break through the condition to satisfy the relationship they have, causing a split in a couple. It seems that the condition can sometimes be incurable, with deep psychological rootings in a patient.

Interestingly, whilst many of Freud's theories have fallen out of favour in the psychological community (being replaced with empirically evidenced theories), this theory has been described by some as being 'astonishingly modern' and 'highly prevalent' within society (Hartmann, 2009). Not only does it show that the theory is agreed by many to be a real condition with a negative effect on people's lives, it may show that not all of Freud's theories should be discarded in favour of more modern ideas. Freud's influence over modern psychology is undeniable, and concepts such as this show that his work is still valid and applicable in the present day environment.

Ref:

Freud, Sigmund (1912) "Über die allgemeinste Erniedrigung des Liebeslebens [The most prevalent form of degradation in erotic life]" Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen 4: 40–50
Hartmann, U. (2009), Sigmund Freud and His Impact on Our Understanding of Male Sexual Dysfunction. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 6: 2332–2339. doi: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01332.x

Does Facebook REALLY Make You Miserable?

Some people have claimed for a long time that using Facebook can have negative effects for a user. Some even go as far as to claim that Facebook use can lead to cancer. But do such claims have any scientific basis, or are flawed studies used to justify sensationalist newspaper headlines?

One such study which claims to link the service to a lowered self-esteem is that of Chou & Edge, published last year. They studied the impact of how the site shaped perceptions of their lives compared to others. They gave 425 undergraduates at a Utah state university a questionnaire to fill out, from which they got their data. The questionnaire asked the participants how much they agreed with defining statements (for example 'others have better lives than me'), how many hours they spent on Facebook and how many friends they had on the site. The researchers noticed that the participants who spent the most time on Facebook appeared to agree more with the negative defining statements and more positive perceptions of others. This appears to show that Facebook use could lead to distorted views of one's self and others, and a lowered self-esteem. They also found that those that had been using Facebook longer than other participants had a lower agreement score for 'life is fair' statements, further highlighting the apparent effect Facebook has on it's users.

However, whilst the research is interesting and thought provoking, it is indeed flawed. Whilst the research appears to show Facebook use and a distorted opinion of yourself and others, it is impossible to imply cause and effect from a correlation (which is what this study found). Perhaps lowered self-esteem causes higher Facebook use through a fear of socialising face-to-face? This is not explored by the research. Furthermore, other variables do not seem to have been taken into account which could affect the results of the study. For example, current living conditions could affect the results of the study. A high-stress job may cause distortions in perception, for example where others get promoted. The participant could assume that their life is worse due to not getting promoted, or other life factors that could cause lowered self-esteem and distortions in perception. Also, those using the service the longest would be those who were in Universities when Facebook went online in 2004. As the current economic downturn could be affecting the ability to get a graduate level, stable career, this could affect both perceptions of others (who have been lucky enough to succeed) and the amount of time spent on Facebook (due to boredom and lack of a job). These factors simply haven't been explored by the study, causing it to be flawed. It could be argued that the research also lacks content validity, as the effect of Facebook has not been clearly measured due to the lack of control or consideration of other factors affecting the results.

In conclusion, whilst the research presents an interesting point of debate (the impacts of social networking websites on the mental health of people), I believe that a lot of the headlines made due to studies like these are unjustified, due to flaws in the current research. Perhaps with better designed studies, we may be able to assess the impact of Facebook without newspaper sensationalism and flawed information.

References:

Daily Mail. (2009). How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer. In Daily Mail. Febuary 2, 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-using-Facebook-raise-risk-cancer.html.

Hui-Tzu Grace Chou, Nicholas Edge,. (2011). “They Are Happier and Having Better Lives than I Am”: The Impact of Using Facebook on Perceptions of Others' Lives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. -Not available-, ahead of print. doi:10.1089/cyber.2011.0324.

Does Psychology Have A Unified Standard?

One of the main arguing points against Psychology being classed as a science is that it does not have a unified approach. For example, Biology has the common descent theory as it's unified standard. All Biological theories revolve around this theory, that all life has evolved from it's predecessors. It is argued that Psychology does not have a theory like this, therefore it cannot be a science. However, perhaps the field has something else to unify the approaches?

Early Psychologists attempted to unify different theories and fields using structuralism. Structuralism was revolutionary as it was the first method of thought to seperate Psychology from Biology, and religions. It attempted to seperate the mind from the body, and seperated the mind into different components, and 'brain processes using subjective measures (Titcher, 1910). Structuralism used a method called introspection to obtain an insight into the human mind. However, the theory was criticised by many, as the data was subjective and obtained by an unreliable method (introspection was a mainly self-report scheme of research). Because of this, the findings could not be reliably applied to other people (e.g an entire population), and could not be applied to real world issues. For this reason, this unifying theory was considered unscientific.

From the criticism of structuralism came the unifying theory of functionalism. This theory, which forms the basis of modern Psychology, attempted to connect the mind to the body and analyse mind functioning by analysing how the mind works. It uses mental operations instead of elements of the mind, focusing on the purpose of behaviours, and uses emprical, objective evidence to peform assessments of the mind. This theory led to developments of different approaches to Psychology, for example the Biological and Humanistic approaches. Researchers realised that the field of Psychology was too broad to be contained under one unbrella term, and branched out. However, whilst the different fields sometimes conflict and offer vastly different approaches, they all use the same theory of functionalism; using emprical evidence and being objective with the research and their findings. Because of this, it could be argued that Psychology has a unified theory, and is therefore scientific.

Ethics In Research

Research is the basis for all psychological studies. Without research, all theories  would stand as wild guesses as to what is really happening within the minds of the population with no evidence or investigation to back the ideas up. Psychology would have no weight as a subject without research, making research a vital area within the subject of psychology. However, research can often make giant leaps into difficult areas such as the well-being of participants both in and around the studies. For example, Zimbardo's prison experiment placed participants within a contrived prison environment. Some were assigned as guards and some as prisoners, and the actions of the guards placed the prisoners under extreme amounts of stress and anxiety. This may have caused them long-term psychological damage. Whilst the study is considered a classic, shaping how psychologists understand group aggression and behaviours, questions should be raised over how the research could have affected the participants. Was it ethical to place the participants under this amount of extreme stress and pressures? On the other hand, perhaps the deception and harm to participants could be justified due to the important, groundbreaking results shown by the research? For this reason, it is important that ethics are considered for each study undertaken by institutions and is why every institution has an ethics commitee to consider the effects on the participants versus the benefits the research would have. Without research there would be no developments within psychology, but care must be taken to ensure that harm is minimised and that research is practiced ethically.