To summarize, the object of the foregoing is to draw attention to the significance which the impossibility of fulfilling the wish for pregnancy and childbearing like mother has on the psychic development of the adult male. The obstacles to be overcome are the feelings of rage, jealousy, rivalry, and above all of impotence and helplessness and the destructive aggression which accompany these experiences. Child-bearing is experienced as achievement, power, and competition with the mother. It represents being active like mother. It is an identification with the active producing mother.

It is our impression that these relations play an important part with numerous men, and that it is one of the greatest problems in the preoedipal phase of the male to deal with these conflicts without causing a disturbance in development.