French Psychoanalysis considers maternal sexuality and desire to be central to development and that to be the object of the mother's desire is to have the Phallus. The Oedipus myth can be seen as an allegory for the struggle that the child has in negotiating the transition from believing himself to be the Phallus and centre of his mother's desire to accepting the reality that she has her own desires which being small he cannot possibly fulfil. The Medusa myth introduces the idea of the phallic mother who has all that she desires without need of a child and confronting this leaves the child castrated. It is a truth that is turned away from both by infant and society. However, maternal desire is key to the infant's development of self and has a function in psychic structuring. The infant can copy the image of desire perceived in the mother and reflect this in himself which we see where there is a narcissistic mother or where maternal desire is absent as in the hysteric. Alternatively, with the right environment and the right mother-infant relationship it is possible for the infant to create a ‘self’ mediated through maternal desire.