Orens's patient used regression as a defense against Oedipal anxiety. In his states of regression, separation appeared as a process of birth from his father rather than from his mother. Pregenital fixations affect genital conflicts. It is suggested that 'when a person regresses from the Oedipal situation and has preoedipal fantasies, the content and meaning of these may well be determined in large part by the conflicts of the Oedipal areas from which the regression took place'. In the patient under discussion, the fantasy of separation or birth from father may be understood as a regressive fantasy, colored by Oedipal experience in which the patient eliminated his mother as an object because she was the more dangerous parent, and also because his libidinal attachment to her placed him in rivalry with his father. In his pregenital regressive state he still avoided mother as the object, choosing father instead, as he had in the Oedipal situation.