Lang discusses the case of a female obsessive-compulsive patient who seemed to fit all the typical patterns, an almost textbook case. However, there were some unexplained aspects of the case, in particular, the focus of the patient on her father, rather than on her mother as required by classical theory. The author feels these aspects are better handled from a structural (in the sense of Lévi-Strauss and Lacan) perspective, rather than from the customary psychoanalytic view of regression from the oedipal conflict to the anal level.

Compared to animals, humans are rather poor in instinct; given their weakness and shortcomings, they are oriented toward communication. The mediators in this process of individual socialization are the primary objects, who are representatives of culture and linguistic communication, the ordre symbolique of Lacan and Lévi-Strauss. Because of this organization, we do not encounter instinct per se. The so-called