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THIS PAPER REEXAMINES THE CLASSICAL VIEW OF THE INTImate link between the resolution of the oedipus complex and superego formation from a developmental point of view. It draws upon data from analytic and observational material as well as some of Freud's formulations to suggest that superego development and functioning start prior to the phallic-oedipal phase and that the resolution of the oedipus complex does not seem to be an essential precondition for the development of a fully structured superego functioning with relative autonomy.
Freud introduced the concept of the superego in 1923, in The Ego and the Id. In this and most subsequent works he links the formation of the superego as a relatively autonomous psychic structure with the resolution of the oedipus complex:
The broad general outcome of the sexual phase dominated by the Oedipus complex may, therefore, be taken to be the forming of a