The Waning of the Oedipus Complex

ANY OF THE VIEWS EXPRESSED in this paper have been M stated previously by others in some form. To account for my omission (barring a very few exceptions) of specific references, I can do no better than quote from Breuer’s introduction to his theoretical chapter in the “Studies on Hysteria ” (Breuer and Freud, 1893-1895, pp. 185-186): When a science is making rapid advances, thoughts which were first expressed by single individuals quickly become common property. Thus no one who attempts to put forward to-day his views on hysteria and its psychical basis can avoid repeating a great quantity of other people’s thoughts which are in the act of passing from personal into general possessibn. It is scarcely possible always to be certain who first gave them utterance, and there is always a danger of regarding as a product of one’s own what has already been said by someone else. I hope, therefore, that I may be excused if few quotations are found in this discussion and if no strict distinction is made between what is my own and what originates elsewhere. Originality is claimed for very little of what will be found in the following pages. The Oedipus compiex-psychic representation of a cen-