Hanna Segal

E ver since Freud discovered the Oedipus complex it
has been recognized as the central conflict in the
human psyche -- the central cluster of conflicting
impulses, phantasies, anxieties and defences. It has there-
fore become the centre of psychoanalytic work. It is still
sometimes mistakenly thought that Klein's work became
solely concerned with the baby's relation to the breast and
that the role of the father and the Oedipus complex lost in
importance in her work. In fact, as is certainly well known
by those acquainted with the work, one of Klein's earliest
discoveries was that of early forms of the superego and of
the Oedipus complex before genital primacy. She discovered
that there were primitive forms of the Oedipus complex and
that pre-genital does not necessarily mean pre-oedipal. She
sees the father -- the real father as well as the phantasies
about father -- as being important in the child's life from the
beginning. When she started working with children she was
surprised to discover that children not much over two years
of age showed oedipal phantasies and had intense anxieties

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