ABSTRACT
The phases of development of the child and the various stages in his relationship to people in the outside world are what have been worked over most in psychoanalytic theory and practice. Because the first loves of the child are the most powerful ones, the first identifications–those of the first years–are the most powerful. There is no superego except on the basis of identification with the parents, and there is no identification with the parents–at least no identification leading to a superego–except on the basis of love for the parents, of object attachment to the parents. The aggression in the child does not merely disappear but has to be used somewhere, so it is used by the superego and directed inwards, towards the ego of the child. This means that the superego of the child becomes harsh and cruel to the degree to which the aggression has been turned away from the parents.
