The Oedipus complex in the light of early anxieties (1945)

Abstract

In this chapter, the author focuses on his views about the boy’s Oedipus development is taken from the analysis of a boy of ten. The analysis of the various anxiety situations which he has described had the effect of bringing Richard’s Oedipus desires and anxieties more fully to the fore. When the repression of Richard’s genital desires was to some extent lifted, his castration fear came more fully under analysis and found expression in various ways, with a corresponding modification in his methods of defence. Richard’s failure to establish the genital position securely was largely caused by his incapacity to deal with anxiety in the early stages of his development. The great part which the bad breast played in Richard’s emotional life was connected with his unsatisfactory feeding period and the strong oral-, urethral- and anal-sadistic impulses and phantasies which it stimulated.