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Ophelia Complex'''

Ophelia complex
The Ophelia complex denotes the struggle experienced by females in developing a healthy sense of self, particularly in relation to the predominance of patriarchal gender roles. Gaston Bachelard, the French philosopher who coined the term "Ophelia complex", defines an internalised struggle characterised by an awareness of the vast differences between the present and the culturally expected self. Although present in both genders, the disparity presents a particularly unique effect in the female population as a result of the instability of the female identity within patriarchy, which staunchly presents women as counterparts to men and child bearers, further complicating the process of individuation.

In recent years the term has been specified to the plight of adolescent females, emerging alongside puberty, and most deeply attached to psychology by Dr. Mary Pipher, whose book Reviving Ophelia demonstrates case studies of poor complex resolution in the higher incidence of depression and self-harming psychological behaviours in women, such as conscious underachievement, suicidal behaviours and the manifestation of eating disorders.

Background
In his essay on 'Water and Dreams' Bachelard fashioned the 'Ophelia complex', with the notion that the watery death of Shakespeare's Ophelia, was analogous to the instability of the female identity and the experience of poor self-realisation (individuation) in women. In Hamlet, Ophelia experiences a short life of misadventure, resultant to the heavy influence of the men that surround her. Although presented as a main character, she has no self-constructed inputs to the tragedy, acting only as a means of communicating the intentions of her brother Laertes, father Polonius, and of Hamlet following the truth of his father's death, to the audience. Ultimately she reaches an untimely death, drowning slowly and with little apparent control, in the same manner that she lived. Bachelard thus took Ophelia to be a metaphor for the silencing of the female self, and its consequences, relating poor individuation to a 'female death'.

There are many interpretations of Ophelia's role within the narrative, but all tend to agree that Ophelia is a figurehead for the misrepresentation of women in society, and its effects. All of her experiences are mere and fleeting, and there are many occasions in which she is condemned for acting in ways that conflict others' expectations of her. For example when Hamlet first learns the truth of his father's death and his rants are depicted as justified by the other characters, however when Polonius dies and Ophelia responds in turn, she is considered deranged. Similarly Ophelia's acceptance of Hamlet's advances are initially viewed as acceptable, however when Hamlet is no longer in love with her, her former acceptance became viewed as wanton, causing her great distress. "Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet" [3], and once he no longer has a need for her in love, and her dead father no longer has a use for her in his social advancement, her character becomes diminished entirely.

Gender differences in depression
Depression is more exponential in its growth in the female adolescent population than for relative males, and though the general assumption is that these differences originate from differing types of emotional reactivity between girls and boys investigations maintaining the same level of social support and emotionality between tested samples have found that the disparity still remains. These findings have been taken to mean that biological differences are the source

Factors of the Ophelia Complex
Dr Mary Pipher describes the complex as the result of a 'girl poisoning culture where girls are pressured to... grow up too fast and be... sexy and decorative' [4]

Self-acceptance

Failure to accept the existing self has been identified as a common factor of depression and poor development in females. The Healthy Living Project, a clinical trial which promoted health at every size (HAES) through self- and body- acceptance training, found women reported less depression, higher self-esteem, and also better physical health (lower blood pressure and blood lipids) than women in a standard dieting program at post-treatment (56weeks) and follow up (104 weeks) evaluations. Both groups of obese chronic dieters lost weight, but the effect was less sustained in the standard dieting group, who made significant losses by the end of treatment, but soon regained the weight. 53% of the diet group reported feelings of failure at having regained weight as opposed to none of the HAES participants, and the physical tests showed improvements even during weight change concluded to reinforce the idea that cognitive-behavioural change should be targeted in trying to tackle eating interventions.