The universality of the Oedipus complex indicates that the oedipal situation is at the heart of the mental life of man. Usually, one finds oneself with two opposing situations, in reading the psychoanalytic literature published in the French-speaking countries and that of the English-speaking countries. Some people accuse psychoanalysts of 'oedipalization' of the study of the mental life and the behaviour of man. Others, such as the followers of Melanie Klein, consider the problem of relations with internal objects is there from the first year of life and imply a division between good and bad objects, followed by a split that dominates the mental life of man throughout his life.

After several anthropological references, I have tried to study how clinical themes permit me to distinguish the approach to the Oedipus complex from the triangulation of object relations, and how the Oedipus complex today appears to find an outlet in the destiny and the vicissitudes of narcissism.