A Manifest Oedipus Complex in an Adolescent Girl

While it is extremely rare to find a manifest oedipus complex in adult neurotic patients, many authors1 have described the schizophrenic patient as freely exposing the oedipus complex. Bychowski (1952) reported the events in the psychotic as a loss of the superior layers of the ego and superego. As a result, sublimation and repressions lose their dynamic power and so lay bare the primitive ego. However, there are nonpsychotic patients who do not manifest the horror of incest that Freud (1925) described as part of the prehistoric inheritance.

In order better to understand the defect in the superego which makes it possible for incestuous fantasies to become conscious, it may be profitable to review some theories on the development and function of the ego and superego, with particular reference to the adolescent. According to Jones (1926), the function of the superego is to criticize and to cause pain to the ego whenever the latter tends to accept forbidden id impulses. It has obviously failed in exercising this function when incestuous wishes can too readily gain access to consciousness. Jones (1922) further states that the adolescent finally achieves maturity when he abandons incestuous objects and turns his interest to other figures. But the success of this maturation depends on the degree of frustration experienced in reality and on the satisfaction new objects will give (Freud, 1912). Another element is the degree of attraction exercised by the infantile objects. For the girl, there is a slower and more gradual passing of the oedipus complex (Jones, 1922); (Freud, 1925a). This factor, reinforced by the recrudescence of the revived, infantile complexes, may facilitate the emergence of incestuous attachments into consciousness. The impetus for the resurgence of the oedipus complex springs from the acceleration of biological processes at adolescence.

We have previously reported a clinical psychiatric study of adolescent