In psychoanalysis, the word "castration" is associated with several others that define it and that it in turn defines. These include "anxiety," "threat," "symbolic," "fear," "terror," "disavowal," and above all "complex." Beyond the everyday connotations of the term, the specifically psychoanalytic definition of castration is rooted in the act feared by male children, namely the removal of the penis. The essential connection between "castration" and "complex" derives from the fact that psychoanalysis views the castration complex, in tandem with the Oedipus complex, as the organizing principle of psychosexuality and, more broadly speaking, of mental life in general.

The metapsychological position of the castration complex was described relatively late in Freud's work, but the word "castration" appeared earlier, linked to various psychoanalytical notions the consideration of which makes it possible to trace his theoretical course...