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Abraham felt that the phylogenetic recapitulation reflecting itself in the oral, anal, urogenital progression of early embryo development was related to the oral, anal, phallic psychological
progression of infantile sexual development. He considered the psychological progressions to be 'parallelisms with biological processes'. The inability to see any tangible relationships forced Abraham to create his 'lag' hypothesis. The phylogenetic recapitulation described by Abraham does not take place once and for all as he thought, but is repeated many times and with the same sequential developmental sweep. Thus, human intra-uterine foetal development and growth has an expanding spiral quality which is characteristic of all mammalian forms of life.