The threshold of the male Oedipus complex

The transition into the male Oedipus complex is complicated by the fact that there is no "change of object" as in female development. For the boy, the mother is both the object of preoedipal attachment to an omnipotent internal object and of oedipal desire for an external whole object. The psychological-interpersonal movement into triangulated oedipal object relations is mediated by the elaboration of mature forms of primal scene fantasies in conjunction with the development of a "transitional oedipal relationship" to the mother.