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The progression of the Oedipus complex, impelled by its will to understand, requires freeing the mnemic traces of primary acts of violence by reactivating them secondarily to treat them on the basis of a defense manifested by suffering. The narcissistic wound imposed by reality is reopened in the form of a post-traumatic gain by the erogenous masochistic binding that enables the libidinal energies of the Oedipus complex to be modified in a way that fosters accession to its responsibility and freedom from ambivalently experienced parental imagos of childhood.