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With reference to the original Œdipus complex, the author puts forward the hypothesis that identification with the aggressor is situated at the crossroads between narcissistic and objectal cathexes. It essentially coexists with fear of the other and transforms quantity into quality and violence into hostility in the identificatory process. When Œdipal attraction exerts sufficient power, identification with the aggressor contributes to primary symbolisation and triggers primary phantasies and secondary identifications. When a failure in maternal seduction hinders subjectivisation, this form of identification can be characterised as an encounter with the figure of Medusa. The clinical examples of borderline states and psychosis reveal its role in an uncanny quality of destabilised identity and a cathexis that is situated on the frontier of symbolisation and qualifies a fetishistic relation to the object. The author concludes by suggesting that in the Greek Tragedies and particularly in Aeschylus' Orestia, this form of identification is most clearly represented by the Erinyes.