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"Masculinity" or "sexual identity" as male (in contrast to the much earlier awareness of "maleness" or "gender identity") is defined by Blos as, "an endogenous
system of behavior and attitudes, symbolizations and meanings that in their totality are characteristic and unique for any culturally coherent social structure." Years of careful clinical observation led Blos to question the centrality of the oedipus complex in the etiology of neurotic conflicts around masculinity in the adolescent male. He increasingly recognized, as equally or more important, expressions of defense against a regression to an earlier emotional attachment to the father. This early attachment, begun in the separation-individuation phase, may be an "absolutely necessary facilitator" in the loosening of the earliest symbiotic oneness with the mother and, through identification, a necessary factor in male gender identity consolidation. Blos calls this first bond with and idealization of the father by the little boy the "dyadic father imago." The oedipal or "triadic" father is contained in a very different imago. Blos observes that disturbances in masculine identity formation have dual roots in "interlocking dyadic and triadic developmental derailments." He believes neither stage is resolved in childhood but the normative process has to be completed in adolescence. Out of these resolutions springs the definitive character of the masculinity of any individual male. Blos notes that he is not discussing the etiologies of "grossly deviant masculinity" (which he neglects to define) but rather the "common disturbances" which bring many adolescents and young men to therapy.