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The trophy is the individual's infantile and narcissistic sense of power which he has had to give up and to displace on to other, adult figures (principally his father) and which he wishes to regain. This power is represented by the person as a whole, the penis, the super-ego, the head, etc. In seeking to gain this trophy the individual is laid open to a conflict between his hatred and his love for the possessor of it. His hatred makes him wish to get it by attacking his object; whereas his love inclines him to adopt a passive homosexual attitude and entice it into himself. The two feelings combine to soften down the original aggressive phantasy of killing and eating the possessor of the trophy into one of seizing the valued part of him without destroying him, and, still further, into one of participating in it with the owner's consent.
In connection with this last point, especially, great importance must be attached to processes of identification based upon phantasies of getting inside the other person and thus sharing in his power from within, in contradistinction to phantasies of incorporating his power in oneself. From the social point of view, this phantasy of participation accounts for the comparative absence of class-hatred among the poor; and it also underlies the institution of the totem feast.
Triumph is the individual's reaction to a successful capture of the trophy. But, later on, feelings of depression (or melancholia) will alternate with feelings of elation (or mania) according as the degree of anxiety and guilt in relation to the incorporated object vary.