Shengold emphasizes the importance of the preoedipal elements in the Oedipus myth, and describes parallels between it and the character and fate of patients who were seduced by psychotic mothers as children. He suggests that these parallels clarify the clinical data and therapeutic problems of such patients. Like Jocasta, psychotic mothers who seduce their children are said to be sadistic, cruel, abandoning, and symbiotically devouring. (The Sphinx is Jocasta symbolically disguised.)