ABSTRACT
In one of his early papers on psychoanalysis, entitled ‘Family Romances’ (Der Familienroman der Neurotiker) (1909), Freud suggested that some neurotics, during their childhood psychological development, entertained the fantasy that their parents were not their biological progenitors.1 Instead, they believed themselves to be the offspring of much more (socially) important parents, and this belief centred, in particular, on the figure of the father.
