Ok. Let’s put this out there before we go any further: I love my mommy. I really do. Someone once told me that the way I treat my mother will be the way I treat my wife in the future and I think that makes sense. So I try to tell my mom that I love her before she leaves for her work during the night shift and I try to help her with chores and stuffs because I want to do that for my future wife.
So I took AP Psychology at the beginning of this year and one of the first topics we talked about was the Psychoanalytic school of Psychology founded by Sigmund Freud. Now, this guy was weird. He associated a lot of early psychological analysis to sex and aggression. Mind you that Psychology is probably the newest branch of science so this guy was a pioneer and his early “discoveries” opened up a new frontier.
And so Freud is famous for having his patients do free association during appointments. When you think of psychological therapy, you probably think of laying down on a huge sofa and telling the therapist about your feelings. That is all Freud.
As aforementioned, Freud related a lot of his analysis to sex and aggression. One of his weirdest analyses was that one seeks the approval and affection of their opposite gender parent. So in my case, according to Freud, I seek my mother’s attention. A deeper part of Freud’s theory suggests that within the affection and attention one desires, mating with their parent is the singular goal.
Yeah. Well, that’s weird. And so we can take that theory and apply it to our lives. Freud would suggest that you seek a boyfriend or girlfriend that posses the same traits as your father or mother.
I remember an episode in Scrubs when Carla met Turk’s mom for the first time. From the introductions they just hit it off, albeit because of their criticisms towards Turk. Carla then realized that she was very similar to Momma Turk and she confronted Turk about it. He agreed that Carla resembled his mother but he didn’t think it was weird because they shared traits that, in the end, are desirable to any man in a woman.
And so from that little anecdote, I want to point out something about this Freudian theory. Technically he is right. We do seek someone who resembles our parent. But that is because we can find a lot of strength and perfection in our parents.
I love my mom and I don’t necessarily want to find someone like her but I want to find someone who is humble, a hard worker, (beautiful) and a great cook. Traits that my mother first exposed to me.
So my dad did pretty good. He says he married up in the scale. I just hope that I can do as good, if not better.
