ABSTRACT
The child regresses from the intensely frightening fantasies and feelings of anal-oedipal relationships with his or her parents and reverts back to a more regressive preoccupation with anal fantasies and anal masturbation. The various characteristic defenses that develop at the point of transition are not pathological unless the defense impoverishes the child. The characteristic defense is determined largely by the particular aspect of preoedipal sexuality that needs extra protective repression. The importance of that transition is best illustrated by reviewing Freud's classic concepts of compulsion neurosis. The first true regression occurs at this point, at the transition from the Oedipus conflict to latency. The compulsion neurotic handles inner tensions by means of compulsive rituals. A ritual, therefore, is sometimes but not always a compulsive ego activity directed against anal-sadistic object relations. Early psychological development can be studied from various standpoints: from the sequence of phases in libidinal development, the sequence of developing ego functions; the different kinds of anxiety experiences.
