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An important reason why there are so many conflicting ideas as to what factors and components are involved in the genesis of the superego is a tendency to overlook the fact that individual experiences early in life result in conditioned fears, which engender subsequent anxiety reactions and a state of increased “vigilance” toward the environment. This vigilance or heightened alertness renders the organism more sensitive to subsequent development of conditioned patterns and anxiety manifestations.
Development of oral sadism, for instance, following oral frustrations may result in behavior that stimulates maternal retaliation to an extent where conditioned fears develop in the infant, with eventual production of excessive anxiety. Melanie Klein and her group are correct, to a degree, in that the edipus complex and characteristic features long antedate the age period postulated by Freud, reaching back to the second and perhaps the first year of life. It seems, however, that this is true only in certain cases where, based on strong positive conditioning, overvaluation of the maternal source of oral pleasure has developed and conditioned fears and anxiety reactions interact.
It would hardly be necessary for an infant to overvaluate the mother and resent intrusion of the father to an undue degree if there were little anxiety associated in the relationship.
Neo-Freudians have repeatedly pointed out that the existence and form of the edipus are culture-bound; and from the orthodox camp, Fenichel (4) reflects this position when he states that the complex is undoubtedly a product of family influence. Adler (1) indicates conditioning mechanisms in stating that the edipus complex “is not a fundamental fact, but Is simply a vicious unnatural result of maternal overindulgence”. Horney (7) does likewise is describing two main series of conditions consisting of: 1) sexual stimulation by the parents of a “gross sexual approach” and 2) anxiety which causes the child to cling to one of t