The libido, following the paths of the narcissistic needs, attaches itself to the objects that promise to satisfy those needs. For example, the child’s mother, who stills its hunger, becomes its first love-object and undoubtedly also its first protection against all the vague dangers that threaten it from the outside world – the child’s first fear shield, we might say. The mother is soon supplanted in this function by the stronger father, with whom it then remains right throughout childhood. However, the child’s relationship to its father is burdened with a curious ambivalence. The father was
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