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Heimann makes specific note of the fact that she omits the broad areas of agreement with her fellow speakers1 and concentrates on the divergences of
opinion between them and herself as a representative of the followers of Melanie Klein. According to the latter, the child enters its Oedipal phase (i.e. triangular relationship with its parents) toward the end of the first year of its life. From the start, the boy's Oedipal fantasies comprise an unconscious knowledge of the mother's vagina and the wish to gain pleasure by penetrating it, a wish which is intensified by the desire to make amends for his rage at his mother by giving her genital pleasure and babies. Associated with these masculine wishes are hatred and fear of the father as a rival. Also from the start of his Oedipal phase, the boy has the wish to incorporate his father's penis and to receive a child from him. In connection with these feminine wishes the boy envies and hates his mother as a rival; in particular he envies her ability to bear and feed children. The boy's narcissistic pride in his penis and contempt for the female genitals are at least partially a defense against the frightening fantasies arising from his interest in and longing for his mother's vagina.
Correspondingly, the little girl from the start of her Oedipal phase has the unconscious fantasy of receiving her father's penis into her own vagina and getting a child from him. In this connection she perceives her mother as an envied and hated rival. The girl's penis envy is not a primary phenomenon, but is rather the result of the girl's devaluation of her own femininity for a complex of reasons, and is thus (like the little boy's phallic pride) essentially a defensive position. Moreover, the wish for a child is not considered a derivative of the wish for a penis. Heimann does not give in