Seduction Theory In Medea

The Lingering of the Repressed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD, was recognized as a disorder with specific symptoms and was added to the Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980. However, prior to this acknowledgement, father of psychology, Sigmund Freud, had already developed a theory on it. Freud’s Seduction theory states: “both forgotten childhood trauma and a variety of adult stresses could cause neurosis”, such as we have seen in Euripides’s Medea; in which Medea acted irrationally after having gone through traumatic events. Whether it was Freud in the 1890s or Euripides in 430 BC the idea that PTSD is present in one’s daily live has always been a suggestion.
As Jacobs’s contribution to the American Journal of Psychotherapy named it, the “Medea Complex” (Jacobs. 2). The Medea Complex is the explanation for the downfall of Medea and her family. The famous Greek tragedy begins with Medea’s

All her efforts, only to be betrayed by the man she loved the most. Unfortunately, her misery did not end with the betrayal. She sought revenge on the traitor that carried no guilt and felt that Medea’s sex was to blame, for she was the one that had been weak and acted out of love for so many years. After much thought and self-conflict, she decided to murder the new bride of her former husband and taking the life of her own children. Euripides made Jason’s character to be self-centered and having “a minimum capacity to understand the feelings of others” (Jacobs). Leading Medea to commit a most horrible act, knowing that it would at last cause Jason the same pain that he had cause her: she murdered their