Carl Jung proposed that the Electra complex involves three different phases: attraction to one’s mother, attraction to one’s father, and, finally, resolution.
Jung believed that the emotional bond between a girl and her mother is more intense than that between a boy and his mother during infancy and toddlerhood. However, upon learning that she has no penis, she feels a desire to obtain what her father’s sexual organ symbolizes.
At this stage, a girl may become jealous and display behaviors like possessive affection toward her father. Alternatively, she may display hostility if she does not get what she wants from the father figure.
Attraction to one’s father
Freudian theory conceptualized that, between three and six to seven years of age, a child begins to want to possess and become closer to the parent of the opposite sex. A boy may push away his father and kiss and hug his mother. Similarly, a young girl may insist on going into the bathroom with her father.
Eventually, according to Freud, the Electra complex dissolves. In doing so, a number of defense mechanisms play a role. In the theory of psychosexual development, the primal id — the instinctive component of personality that is present at birth – compels a child to possess her father and compete with her mother.