ABSTRACT
The ego development was so much under the domination of the mother that the chief concern has been the relation, not of the ego but of the child’s total Self to body, mother, and mother as representative of the world. But both the infant’s attachment to its body and its attachment to its mother are an expression of the fact that at this stage the body-totality, the body-Self, is of greater importance than the ego, which is configured only gradually. The development of the child personality from the matriarchate to the patriarchate is mirrored in the development of the ego. By a number of stages the ego develops from the matriarchate to confrontation with the father archetype and then on to achieve its highest degree of independence in the patriarchate. In discussing the development of the active ego, which at first is common to both sexes, authors shall speak of “phallic stages of the ego”.
