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The theory of the psychoanalytic school attributes the origin of neuroses to a conflict between conscious strivings and unconscious longings or to a wholly unconscious conflict of purpose. Such situations produce a compromise which manifests itself in symptoms of physical or mental illness. Psychoanalysis also postulates that the nuclear conflict in the neurosis centers about the love life of the child, particularly his relation in fantasy to the parents, and the struggle between incest desire and cultural prohibition. From a very early age fantasies embodying conception of the married state occupy the child's attention from time to time. Usually the mother is the male child's first choice for the wifely role thereby putting him in the position of a rival to his father.
In nursery games children soon assume the character of their parents in such a favorite game as playing house. Most often the child takes the role of the parent of his own sex, but his endeavor sometimes centers, at least partially, in identification with the parent of the opposite sex—i.e., the little boy may be the mother, the little girl the father. Before long, somewhere between the age of six and twelve, the identification of the child with the parent of the same sex becomes increasingly strong and supersedes his earlier rivalry with that parent.
When the child is unable to resolve his parental attachment in the course of healthy development, neurotic symptoms may indicate such a failure. Such symptoms are closely associated with individual social adjustment, such as inordinate devotion to business, stubborn adherence to formed personal habits or to a hobby, alcoholism, etc., or with the psychic or physical sex life of the adult person. Before long these neurotic symptoms may incapacitate the individual. One