ABSTRACT
This chapter clarifies how W. F. D. Fairbairn's concept of fundamental nature is affected by cumulative trauma arising from too misattuned maternal responsiveness. This gives rise to defensive structures necessary for psychological survival, and these are formed in the state of absolute infantile dependence. Fairbairn's theory is an account of how to negotiate a developmental process of separation individuation: there is a continuum from infantile dependence which is absolute, via transitional dependence to mature dependence. Apart from Little Hans, the Freudian account of the Oedipus complex was developed and refined in the context of the therapeutic dyad. The consistency of the transferential response would seem to confirm that the underlying psychic structure as made manifest in the transference has little to do with external reality. Oedipus was a traumatised child preserved by the "kindness of strangers". Oedipus left his familiar foster home to protect them from the prophecy.
