The Pregenital Antecedents of the Oedipus Complex

The Oedipus complex has been called by Freud 'the nuclear complex' of the neuroses, and we may go further and say that it is the nuclear complex of the unconscious of mankind in general. Every single analysis provides fresh evidence of this fact, if we except those cases of extreme malformation of character which resemble a life-long psychosis and in which a true Oedipus complex has never become crystallized, either because the subject's object-relations were destroyed root and branch at an earlier period, or because such relations never existed at all. However strong may be one's theoretical convictions on the point, it comes as a fresh surprise every time when we find that final solution and cure in an analysis which has remained obscure depend invariably on the deepening of our knowledge of the Oedipus complex.

Freud holds that it is in the fourth or fifth year of life that the Oedipus complex reaches its zenith, that is, that this coincides with the attainment of the phallic level of organization.1 We know that (as is in accordance with this hypothesis) the content of the complex is the wish for genital union with the parent of the opposite sex, together with a jealous hatred of the parent of the subject's own sex. Melanie Klein2 states that she has found in the analyses of children that the complete Oedipus complex is already established at a far earlier period. This view contradicts our experience of the analyses of adults. It is undoubtedly true that at a far earlier period the child is attached to the parent of the opposite sex, and feels jealousy and hatred towards the other parent. But these preliminary phases differ in certain fundamental points from the Oedipus complex at the time of its zenith. (We have an exact analogy in the difference between the preliminary phases of the super-ego—not sufficiently differentiated by M. Klein—and the consolidated super-ego established after the passing of the