Key Arguments

• Freud links back to the earlier discussion by saying "This leads us back to the formation of the Ego Ideal, because behind it hides the first and most significant individual identification, with the father of his personal past. 67"
• He stresses the primacy of this identification: "This does not seem to be the success or result of an object cathexis, it is more direct and immediate and earlier than any object cathexis."
• He then states that "the object-choices belonging to the first sexual period and applying to father and mother, seem, in the normal course of events, to find their outlet in such identification and to strengthen thus the primary identification."
• He notes the complexity of these relationships and attributes it to two factors: "There are two factors at fault for this complication: the triangular system of the Oedipal Relationship and the constitutional bisexuality of the individual. 68"

Source Quotes

Regardless how the character’s later resistance against the influences of the abandoned object cathexes shapes out, the effects of the first identifications made at the earliest ages are general and sustainable. This leads us back to the formation of the Ego Ideal, because behind it hides the first and most significant individual identification, with the father of his personal past. 67 This does not seem to be the success or result of an object cathexis, it is more direct and immediate and earlier than any object cathexis. But the object-choices belonging to the first sexual period and applying to father and mother, seem, in the normal course of events, to find their outlet in such identification and to strengthen thus the primary identification.

This leads us back to the formation of the Ego Ideal, because behind it hides the first and most significant individual identification, with the father of his personal past. 67 This does not seem to be the success or result of an object cathexis, it is more direct and immediate and earlier than any object cathexis. But the object-choices belonging to the first sexual period and applying to father and mother, seem, in the normal course of events, to find their outlet in such identification and to strengthen thus the primary identification.

67 This does not seem to be the success or result of an object cathexis, it is more direct and immediate and earlier than any object cathexis. But the object-choices belonging to the first sexual period and applying to father and mother, seem, in the normal course of events, to find their outlet in such identification and to strengthen thus the primary identification. After all, these relationships are so complicated that it becomes necessary to describe them in depth.

After all, these relationships are so complicated that it becomes necessary to describe them in depth. There are two factors at fault for this complication: the triangular system of the Oedipal Relationship and the constitutional bisexuality of the individual. 68 The simplified case is laid out for the male child in the following way: Very early he develops an object cathexis for the mother, starting with the mother’s breast, and this shows a model of an object choice according to dependency type; the father’s the boy takes possession of through identification. The two relations run parallel for a while until by the strengthening of sexual desires for the mother and the perception that the father poses an obstacle to these wishes, the Oedipus Complex arises.

Key Concepts

• This leads us back to the formation of the Ego Ideal, because behind it hides the first and most significant individual identification, with the father of his personal past. 67
• This does not seem to be the success or result of an object cathexis, it is more direct and immediate and earlier than any object cathexis.
• the object-choices belonging to the first sexual period and applying to father and mother, seem, in the normal course of events, to find their outlet in such identification and to strengthen thus the primary identification.
• There are two factors at fault for this complication: the triangular system of the Oedipal Relationship and the constitutional bisexuality of the individual. 68

Context

Transition in Chapter III from general mechanisms of identification to the specific ontogeny of the ego-ideal/superego in relation to the father and Oedipal dynamics.