ABSTRACT
An important role is played in the early Oedipus complex by the phantasy of the combined parents. As the parents become more fully differentiated and their sexual intercourse arouses jealousy and envy the child may regress to this phantasy of the combined parents as a defence. The parental relationship is denied and in omnipotent phantasy changed into a combined parental figure. The child reacts to the situation by an increase of his aggressive feelings and phantasies. The parents in his phantasies will be attacked by all the aggressive means at his disposal, and they will be perceived in phantasy as being destroyed. The boy’s phantasies centre on intercourse with his mother and castration fears; the girl’s on intercourse with father and anxiety about attacks by her mother. These anxieties in turn bring regressive moves until genitality is more fully established.
