414 MICHAEL E. STOCK 



tion she shows, and the satisfaction of his hunger by nursing, 

 etc. At the same time he is identifying himself with his father, 

 that is to say, he begins to mold himself on the pattern of his 

 father.^ He does this, not only because he is like his father, 

 male, but also because he wants to share in the affection his 

 mother has for her husband. In a few years, as the child 

 passes through the ages of four and five, the increasing inten- 

 sity of affection (which Freud conceived as basically sexual) 

 for the mother, puts the father more and more in the light of 

 a rival and an obstacle to the exclusive enjoyment of the 

 mother's favors. Jealous and hostile feelings arise toward the 

 father; the wish to get rid of him and replace him in the 

 mother's affections becomes more manifest. This combination 

 of identifying-hostile feelings (ambivalent feelings) towards the 

 father and affection for the mother constitutes what Freud 

 called the simple positive Oedipus complex. If this description 

 in more or less Freudian terms seems hard to accept, perhaps 

 the reality underlying the description can be more readily seen 

 in the formulation of another psychoanalyst: In a child, love 

 is extraordinarily wholehearted and jealous.^" 



In a girl child, the normal development of the complex is 

 like that of a boy, but with the roles of each parent reversed; 

 her ambivalent feelings develop with regard to her mother, 

 with whom she identifies and whom she wants to supplant in 

 her father's affections. 



In either girl or boy, the situation can become much more 

 complicated, and, according to Freud, usually does. The boy 



' The concept of identification is a key concept in depth psychology. It signifies 

 a psychological reaction something like imitation but much more profound. ^Vhen 

 a child identifies himself with another, he does not merely take up his patterns of 

 behavior, he absorbs into himself wholeheartedly the ways of thinking, feeling, acting 

 of the other person, and not only consciously but, so deep is the sense of unity with 

 the other person, even consciously. The two principal motives behind identification 

 are lost love and emulation. "When one who is loved must be renounced, a com- 

 pensation may be made in the form of identification, or when one meets a rival, 

 identification can be motivated by the desire for equality with him. See Baudouin, 

 The Mind of the Child, pp. 245-46. (Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1933) 



^"Baudouin, op. cit., p. 51. 



