ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author assume a hypothetical developmental progression in early infancy that the author relate to the struggle with the death instinct. Hamish Canham’s paper, “The Relevance of the Oedipus Myth to Fostered and Adopted Children”, that set the author thinking again about the Oedipus story in general, and the image of the Sphinx in particular. Once the oedipal stage is attained, it is again the marrying-up of these qualities of attunement and differentiation, embodied in a good-enough parental couple, that the child requires if he or she is to feel safely. It is in a large part this link that is being tested when children act out the naughtinesses of their oedipal struggles. The author related this struggle to the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx, and to a universal phantasy, born out of projection, that has implications for infantile ideas about gender.
