Dahl discusses the daughter's ambivalent perceptions of her mother. The child perceives her as both fascinating and malevolent, as a "witch-mother." This perception arises from the child's oedipal wishes and fears, rather than having a predominantly preoedipal basis. The child has a "secret excited longing" for mother, which the child fears; she projects these wishes upon mother. She also projects her jealous possessiveness upon mother. Thus she comes consciously or unconsciously to perceive her as a witch, hostile to any heterosexual wishes of her daughter. Dahl skillfully illustrates her ideas with accounts of three cases (a kind of evidence all too often lacking in papers of this sort). Dahl's paper is of both theoretical and practical value.