In revisiting Katan's paper of fifty years ago on 'The role of "displacement" in agoraphobia' the thesis has been advanced that this is a classic of the psychoanalytic literature. Exploring Freud's reaction to the paper led to considering what might be called his 'conflict of concepts' about the dissolution of the Oedipus complex. A review of the usefulness of the concept of object removal as it applies to the recrudescence of the positive libidinal oedipal strivings in adolescence served then to introduce some thoughts about the mechanisms invoked at this time to manage

and contain the returning negative oedipal libidinal strivings and the aggressive urges accompanying both aspects of the oedipal wishes. The thought is offered that in these latter instances a partial decathexis also occurs, but here is joined not by a special type of displacement as in object removal but rather by neutralization, fusion and identification.