Male obligatory (lack produces intolerable anxiety) homosexuality has its genesis in the earliest mother-child relationship. The homosexual has been unable to pass successfully through the symbiotic and separation-individuation phases of early childhood, hence there are severe ego defects. The homosexuality serves to repress the core conflict, namely the wish for, and fear of, merging with the preoedipal mother. Homosexuality therefore occupies a position between the psychoses and the neuroses; it is a defense against a psychotic disintegration.