ABSTRACT

As psychoanalysis has evolved, so too has the range and focus of our understanding of the role of the father in psychic development and the structuring of the self. In Freud’s account of sexual development (1916–17), the Oedipus Complex and the child’s recognition of genital difference serve to bind and structure the fluid possibilities of the pre-genital era and establish sexual identity and a choice of object. The oedipal father threatens castration and bears an authority that, once internalised, installs his son, at any rate, in a secure relationship with both reality and the moral order (Freud 1923). Within this frame of reference, the image of the mother seems benign and oddly generalised.