ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to make a contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding of the transition in female development that occurs at the threshold of the Oedipus complex. Redirection of the little girl’s libidinal attachment from her mother to her father in the positive Oedipus complex is a development step that has not been adequately understood. The dilemma of having to choose between the mother and father (maleness and femaleness) that is generated by a mother’s fear of engaging in an identification with her own father is at the core of many disorders of gender identity. The psychological reorganization involved in the entry into the female Oedipus complex is mediated by a particular form of transitional relationship to the mother. These Oedipal-level feelings are much more circumscribed and nameable than are the earlier feelings of incompleteness or failure that result from a mother’s inability to recognize and accept the infant’s love.
