ABSTRACT
In Freud's telling, the brothers band together in order to defeat and kill the father. Freud emphasized the role of the father in the Oedipus complex to such an extent that it fell to his heirs to rediscover the obvious role of the mother. Freud described the loss of his father as the most "poignant" of a man's life. In his monumental study of Freud's self-analysis, Anzieu characterizes The Interpretation of Dreams as a dutiful son's creative working-over of his father's demise. The loss of the father in childhood may produce impediments in the laying down of psychic structure. The loss of the father before the so-called resolution of the Oedipus complex can retard or weaken the establishment of the ego ideal. Such an outcome could attenuate or even jeopardize the child's relationship with the internalized father figure. Obviously, the loss of the father in adulthood need not threaten the father's psychical representation or that of the internalized "parental couple".
