Grunberger is critical of current theories on fetishism which emphasize castration anxiety and the defense mechanisms of denial and splitting. The fetish is an anal part-object imprisoned in the sphincter and narcissistically invested rather than sexualized. The fetishist expresses and represents an internal conflict concerning narcissism and anality by projecting this conflict onto an external material object. Several case histories clarify this view. In the early history of the fetishist it seems that there regularly occurs a severe oral conflict which is rapidly shifted to the anal level. The fetishist's history of a profound conflict with the mother leads to a maternal imago of magical narcissistic omnipotence, as well as to that of the anal-sadistic mother upon whom the fetishist projects his own anality and sadism. There is, further, an absence or failure of the father, or a sadistic paternal figure. All these elements are to be found in the symbolic meaning of the fetish.