Spanish PM's daughter targeted with 'expanded Oedipus complex' political slur

The Oedipus complex as an insult: Sánchez's daughter and the 'official plane'

In recent days, a strand of public debate has put Pedro Sánchez's daughter in the spotlight with a psychological diagnosis found in no textbook: the "expanded Oedipus complex". The term, attributed to an unnamed psychologist, sounds more like a slur than clinical analysis. The controversy has also been tainted by a more serious accusation: the alleged use of an official plane as a private taxi for the prime minister's daughter.

The background, as often happens in these cases, mixes armchair psychology with political warfare. Some claim that "badly done socialism" is linked to a dysfunctional maternal figure, and that the current state acts as a "sick mother" devouring her children. Others reply that such a reading is merely an attempt to pathologise the adversary. The real question is not whether the prime minister's daughter has a complex, but why Spanish politics resorts to pseudoscience to strike at opponents.

As for the alleged official plane, it is a serious accusation which, if confirmed, would be a scandal. So far, no evidence supports it. But the damage is already done: the rumour is circulating, and in the age of social media, repetition is enough for many to take it as true. The question is whether personal attacks dressed up in therapeutic language advance politics or reduce it to a spectacle. Psychology, which should serve mental health, has become just another weapon in the ring.