ABSTRACT
A particularly useful way to understand the role of the father in early personality development is in the context of the specific stages and tasks of the child’s development. After describing substages of early personality formation from a developmental structuralist approach (Greenspan, 1979), I will discuss the father’s role in facilitating early personality formation, with special focus on the “dyadic-phallic” stage of early childhood (Greenspan, 1980). During this stage, the father’s role is especially unique in helping the child to stabilize basic ego functions such as reality testing, impulse regulation, mood stabilization, delineation of self from others, and focused concentration.
