Freud wrote: 'in order to possess himself of fire, it was necessary for man to renounce the homosexually tinged desire to extinguish it with a stream of urine'. Grinstein discusses three questions.

• 1What forces were responsible for the renunciation of the urge to urinate on the fire? Grinstein suggests that the parents were the important agents. He cites numerous myths in which woman is regarded as the original owner of fire and her phallic power has to be destroyed for man to obtain the secret of fire. The emphasis on the aggression against the mother suggests that it was she who originally demanded instinctual renunciation from her children.

• 2Does our knowledge of the stages of libidinal development suggest that