In earlier studies, bullfighting was regarded as a quasi-religious ritual in which the matador represents the leader of the primitive horde, who sacrifices the father (bull) to be devoured; as a passion play ending in a unity of attacker and defender, father and mother, parent and child; and as a feminine (balletic bullfighter)-masculine (bull) struggle resulting from a social structure in which

the father abandons the family. Guarner's paper suggests that the fight expresses narcissism, exhibitionism, aggression, anality, and genitality. The matador asserts his omnipotence through domination of the powerful animal representing the father and death. Guarner illustrates his thesis with reports of analyses of two bullfighters.