Gitelson avoids detailed discussion of points of disagreement with Heimann, but objects to her 'foreshortened chronological scale' of the development of instinctual impulses (in particular, genital ones) and ego functions in the infant. He agrees with her that conflicts arising in the earliest, pregenital years of life are the most severe and lie at the core of many adult neuroses. Gitelson believes it untrue that such patients' pregenital conflicts are a regression from Oedipal (phallic) ones; more probably the conflicts of these patients were established in the first place by pregenital constellations. He calls such cases 'narcissistically injured pregenital types', while in cases of transference neurosis the Oedipal conflicts are of central importance. In conclusion he suggests that the Oedipus complex be considered not as the nucleus of neurosis, but rather 'as the nucleus of normal character structure and as the basis of mature life'.