ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses upon Anna Freud’s explanation of the dissolution of the Oedipus complex, that he pays far more attention to the way the boy resolves this problem than the girl. It examines Freudian theory of the Oedipus complex and to appreciate that Freud, however seminal in his work, could not escape the social mores and norms of his time. Freud spoke of the child having direct and distinct graphic sexual feelings for the opposite sex parent. According to Freud, the resolution necessitates that the little boy represses his sexual wishes towards his mother and this allows for the concomitant internalisation of his father. Freud believed that the Oedipus complex, once resolved, was extinct within the individual forever. It was not a case of repression, regression, or denial, or the utilisation of any other defence mechanism, but that once resolved, it would never again occur in that individual’s pathology.
