complex

adj.

1. 1. Consisting of interconnected or interwoven parts; composite.
   2. Composed of two or more units: a complex carbohydrate.
2. Involved or intricate, as in structure; complicated.
3. Grammar.
   1. Consisting of at least one bound form. Used of a word.
   2. Consisting of an independent clause and at least one other independent or dependent clause. Used of a sentence.

n. (kŏm'plĕks')

1. A whole composed of interconnected or interwoven parts: a complex of cities and suburbs; the military-industrial complex.
2. In psychology, a group of related, often repressed ideas and impulses that compel characteristic or habitual patterns of thought, feelings, and behavior. No longer in scientific use.
3. An exaggerated or obsessive concern or fear.
4. Medicine. The combination of factors, symptoms, or signs of a disease or disorder that forms a syndrome.

[Latin complexus, past participle of complectī, to entwine. See complect.]

complexly com·plex'ly adv.
complexness com·plex'ness n.

SYNONYMS   complex, complicated, intricate, involved, tangled, knotty. These adjectives mean having parts so interconnected as to make the whole perplexing. Complex implies a combination of many associated parts: The composer transformed a simple folk tune into a complex set of variations. Complicated stresses elaborate relationship of parts: The party's complicated platform confused many voters. Intricate refers to a pattern of intertwining parts that is difficult to follow or analyze: "No one could soar into a more intricate labyrinth of refined phraseology" (Anthony Trollope). Involved stresses confusion arising from the commingling of parts and the consequent difficulty of separating them: The movie's plot was criticized as being too involved. Tangled strongly suggests the random twisting of many parts: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave,/When first we practice to deceive!" (Sir Walter Scott). Knotty stresses intellectual complexity leading to difficulty of solution or comprehension: Even the professor couldn't clarify the knotty point.

A compound in which molecules or ions form coordinate bonds to a metal atom or ion . Often complexes occur as complex ions, such as [Cu(H₂O)₆]²⁺ or Fe[(CN)₆]³⁻. A complex may also be a neutral molecule (e.g. PtCl₂(NH₃)₂). The formation of such coordination complexes is typical behaviour of transition metals. The complexes formed are often coloured and have unpaired electrons (i.e. are paramagnetic). See also ligand; chelate.

Complexes

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adjective

1. Consisting of two or more interconnected parts: composite, compound. See simple/complex.
2. Difficult to understand because of intricacy: byzantine, complicated, convoluted, daedal, Daedalian, elaborate, intricate, involute, involved, knotty, labyrinthine, tangled. See simple/complex.

noun

1. A usually large entity composed of interconnected parts: system. See part/whole.
2. A center of organization, supply, or activity: base, headquarters, station. Military installation. See place.
3. An exaggerated concern: Informal hang-up. See fear/courage.

adj

Definition: difficult to understand
Antonyms: apparent, clear, direct, discernible, easy, evident, obvious, plain

adj

Definition: involved, intricate
Antonyms: clear, easy, evident, homogeneous, obvious, plain, simple, uniform

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n

A combination of a number of things; the sum or total of various things.

[Ge]

A rather general term used in archaeology to refer to a chronological subdivision of broad groups of defined artefact types such as stone tools or pottery. A recurrent configuration of elements or entities within a larger system.

A complex is a group of partially or totally unconscious psychic content (representations, memories, fantasies, affects, and so on), which constitutes a more or less organized whole, such that the activation of one of its components leads to the activation of others.

Freud did not coin the term "complex." At the end of the nineteenth century, it was occasionally used in psychiatry to designate a collection of ideas belonging to a subject. Freud used it in this sense in 1892 in a sketch written in preparation for his "Preliminary Communication." He wrote that in hysteria, "the content of consciousness easily becomes temporarily dissociated and certain complexes of ideas which are not associatively connected easily fly apart" (1940-41 [1892], p. 149). Shortly after, he used the term again in Studies on Hysteria (1895d), specifically in the case of Emmy von N. Josef Breuer, coauthor of the Studies, wrote, "It is almost always a question of complexes of ideas, of recollections of external events and trains of thought of the subject's own. It may sometimes happen that every one of the individual ideas comprised in such a complex of ideas is thought of consciously, and that what is exiled from consciousness is only the particular combination of them" (1895d, p. 215n).

In the ensuing years, the idea that at the heart of a neurosis there was a collection of ideas and affects specific to the subject and organized around a traumatic sexual experience became central to the development of psychoanalysis—even though subsequently Freud rarely used the term "complex" to designate such a set of ideas. He did add an essential modification to the previous psychiatric conception in positing that, for the most part, such a collection is made up of unconscious processes and remains unconscious itself.

In 1906 he explicitly discussed the term "complex" for the first time in an article on "Psycho-Analysis and the Establishment of Facts in Legal Proceedings" (1906c). He paid homage to Eugen Bleuler, and more particularly to Carl Gustav Jung, whom he had just met, and praised the method of "word association," which was developed by Wilhelm M. Wundt and practiced by Jung. This experimental method consisted of giving a subject a series of "stimulus words" and asking the subject to react as quickly as possible. The time that it takes the person to respond and the nature of their response are assumed to indicate a "complex." Freud, in this work, defined a complex as "ideational content" charged with affect (p. 104).

From then on, he used the term frequently to designate the "nuclear complex of neurosis," that is, "the father complex" (1909d, p. 208n; p. 200ff.), which he designated as the "Oedipus complex" starting in 1910 (1910h, p. 171). Similarly, he began to speak of the "castration complex" (1909b, p. 8).

After he split with Jung, Freud withdrew the praise that that he previously bestowed upon him. Thus he wrote, in his History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement (1914d), that the "theory of complexes" proposed by Jung did not actually attain the status of a theory and had not "proved capable of easy incorporation into the context of psycho-analytic theory" (p. 29), even though the term itself had become common in psychoanalytic usage. In other words, Freud adopted the term to give meaning to his own metapsychological constructions, but rejected the theory of Jung himself.

The following points should be emphasized:

1. There is an obvious difference between the popular use of the term "complex" in contemporary culture and its more specific usage in the psychoanalytic literature. In this regard, what Freud described in 1914 remains the same today: "None of the other terms coined by psycho-analysis for its own needs has achieved such widespread popularity or been so misapplied to the detriment of the construction of clearer concepts" (1914d, pp. 29-30). In contemporary psychoanalytic writings, the term is hardly ever encountered anymore except in two closely connected situations: references to the Oedipus complex and the castration complex.
2. As surprising as it may seem, there has been scarcely any coherent theoretical reflection on the notion of the "complex" as such, except insofar as it is related to other terms used to designate an organized set of mental processes and activities ("structure" and "system," for example). The difficulty arises from the need to distinguish and yet coordinate two different levels. The first describes the structure of the psyche as being the same, at least in its broad outlines, in every human being; such features would be, at least in theory, constitutive of the psyche itself (this is the case with the Oedipus complex and its corollary, the castration complex). The other level is that of individual variations, that is, the particularities of such a fundamental structure taken as a function of personal history, of imagos, of the play of identification, etc. The study of such particularities is the very object of psychoanalytic treatment. But the temptation to group complexes into "families" led over time to the proliferation of "new complexes," generally named after mythological figures. There was the "Electra complex," the supposed feminine version of the Oedipus complex; the "Jocasta complex," which designated the maternal counter-Oedipus; and even the "Ajase complex," which referred to the guilt that is linked in Japanese culture to the desire to kill the mother (Kosawa, 1931/1954). Thus there is a danger of falling into a purely descriptive typology in which the coherence of the Freudian metapsychology disappears and its explanatory power is lost. But in fact, not one of these proposed complexes has survived.
3. Insofar as it relates to a fundamental structure, a complex is in itself not characteristic of this or that neurosis. Only its functionally disruptive manifestations and fixations can rise to the level of pathology.

In the definitions given above, a complex is "a group of ideas." Josef Breuer correctly noted that these ideas could be or could become conscious, but that what is "exiled from consciousness" is their "particular combination." However, we cannot remain at the level of ideas in the strict sense: memory traces, fantasies (at every level, from conscious to unconscious), and imagos, for example, all enter into this "combination." Moreover, what accounts for the effect of the complex is its quota of affect, and also its drive force. Thus, the study of an individual complex in the treatment leads to a topological consideration of all the related defenses and the retroactive reworkings that combined to set up a functional structure of this kind.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund. (1906c). Psycho-analysis and the establishment of facts in legal proceedings. SE, 9: 97-114.

——. (1909b). Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy. SE, 10: 1-149.

——. (1909d). Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis. SE, 10: 151-318.

——. (1910h). A special type of choice of object made by men. SE, 11: 163-175.

——. (1914d). On the history of the psycho-analytic movement. SE, 14: 1-66.

——. (1940-41 [1892]). Sketches for the "Preliminary Communication" of 1893. SE, 1: 147-154.

Freud, Sigmund, and Breuer, Josef. (1895d). Studies on Hysteria. SE, 2: 48-106.

Kosawa, Heisaku. (1954). Two kinds of guilt feelings: the Ajase complex. Japanese Journal of Psychoanalysis, 11. (Original work published 1931)

—ROGER PERRON

A term used in psychoanalysis introduced by Joseph Breuer (1895) in Studies of Hysteria and adopted later by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to mean organized memories, emotions, and fears, which have been pushed down to be largely unconscious, though affecting conscious perception and behaviour.

The term is related to 'complexion', from the humours of medieval physiology and their supposed effects. Thus Chaucer, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, writes: 'Of his complexion he was sangwyn.' It might be bilious or phlegmatic — facial complexion revealing underlying complexes of emotions and disturbances though these may be psychological.

(Published 2004)

See emotions.

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1. the sum or combination of various things, like or unlike, as a complex of clinical signs.
2. that portion of an electrocardiographic tracing that represents the systole of an atrium or ventricle.

• antibody–antigen c. — a complex formed by the combining of antibody and antigen. Called also immune complex.
• Golgi c. — a complex cellular organelle involved in the synthesis of glycoproteins, lipoproteins, membrane-bound proteins and lysosomal enzymes. See also golgi apparatus.
• immune c. — antibody–antigen complex.
• major histocompatibility c. (MHC) — see major histocompatibility complex.
• multienzyme c. — the bringing together of all of the enzymes involved in a series of reactions such that the product of enzyme A is passed directly to enzyme B and so on to the final product.
• olivary nuclear c. — gray matter located in the medulla oblongata dorsal to the pyramidal tracts; an important part of the motor feedback regulatory mechanism.
• primary c. — the combination of a parenchymal pulmonary lesion and a corresponding lymph node focus, occurring in primary tuberculosis. Similar lesions may also be associated with other mycobacterial infections and with fungal infections.

IN BRIEF: Not simple; difficult to understand.

The formula was too complex for the students.

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Complex

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - kompleks, kompliceret, sammensat
n. - kompleks
v. tr. - få (atomer eller bestanddele) til at danne et kompleks
v. intr. - danne et kompleks

Nederlands (Dutch)
complex

Français (French)
adj. - complexe, compliqué
n. - complexe, ensemble, (Psych) complexe, (Méd) complexe
v. tr. - (Chim) produire une molécule complexe (à partir d'un atome)
v. intr. - (Chim) former une molécule complexe

Deutsch (German)
n. - Komplex
adj. - komplex, verwickelt
v. - (Chem) einen Komplex mit einem anderen bilden

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πλέγμα, σύμπλεγμα, συγκρότημα, (ψυχολ.) σύμπλεγμα, κόμπλεξ, απωθημένο σύνολο ιδεών, επιθυμιών ή αναμνήσεων
adj. - (πολυ)σύνθετος, πολυμερής, περίπλοκος

Italiano (Italian)
complesso

Português (Portuguese)
n. - complexo (m), conjunto (m), obsessão (f) (coloq.)
adj. - complexo, composto

idioms:

• guilt complex    complexo (m) de culpa
• inferiority complex    complexo (m) de inferioridade

Русский (Russian)
здание, комплекс, сложный

idioms:

• guilt complex    комплекс вины
• inferiority complex    комплекс неполноценности

Español (Spanish)
adj. - complicado, complejo
n. - complejo, tema, idea fija, obsesión
v. tr. - formar un complejo con
v. intr. - complicarse

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - komplex, anläggning
adj. - sammansatt, komplicerad

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
复杂的, 合成的, 复合物, 综合体, 综合设施, 集团, 情结, 使配合, 使复杂, 使成综合体, 被弄复杂

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 複雜的, 合成的
n. - 複合物, 綜合體, 綜合設施, 集團, 情結
v. tr. - 使配合, 使複雜, 使成綜合體
v. intr. - 被弄複雜

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 복잡한, 어려운, 복문의
n. - 합성물, 종합빌딩, 강박관념
v. tr. - 복잡하게 하다, 합성하다
v. intr. - 복잡하다

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 複合の, 複文の, 入り組んだ, 複雑な
n. - 複合体, 合成物, 錯体, 文化複合, 複素語, コンプレックス, 複合, 団地
v. - 複雑にする, 合成する

idioms:

• inferiority complex    劣等感

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) مادة مركبه, مجموعه أبنيه (صفه) معقد, مركب‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮מסובך, מורכב‬
n. - ‮תסביך, מערכת מורכבת, מערכת כבישים, מערכת מבנים, תשלובת, תרכובת‬
v. tr. - ‮יצר תרכובת עם‬
v. intr. - ‮יצר תרכובת‬

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