As the result of further study with gradually improving technique, Freud, in his later works, confirmed, elaborated and extended his observations on the influence of the family relationships in the growth and development of the individual mind. Of particular importance, both in itself and because of the general influence of the book as in some respects the most thoroughgoing presentation of Freud's methods and point of view, is the treatment of the matter in the "Interpretation of Dreams." Here Freud introduces the subject in connection with that of the so-called typical dreams, _i. e._ dreams which occur to a large number of persons and to the same person on a number of separate occasions. Among such dreams, some of fairly frequent occurrence are, as Freud points out, concerned with the death of near and dear relatives who are still living at the time at which the dream takes place[5]. The consideration of such dreams leads Freud to maintain that they are to be interpreted (in accordance with the general principle of wish-fulfilment)[6] as the manifestation of an actual desire in the Unconscious for the death of the person concerned.
[Sidenote: The hostile element in family relationship]
In explanation of this astonishing and repellent conclusion, Freud draws attention to the fact that the relations of the members of a family to one another are in many respects of such a nature as to call forth hostile emotions almost if not quite as readily as they call forth love; that brothers and sisters, parents and children, owing to the very closeness of the mental and material ties which bind them together and to the very considerable degree to which they are mutually dependent, often find themselves in opposition to, or in competition with, one another. The antagonisms thus produced are frequently of such a kind as to meet with the same opposition from the moral consciousness as is encountered in the case of the sexual or quasi-sexual aspects of love between members of the same family. In their more intense degrees, therefore, they too are often subjected to a process of repression and become banished to the Unconscious. They are, moreover, especially when so banished, very far from being incompatible with the existence of a very genuine affection at the conscious level. In view of the conflicting nature of the tendencies that may be thus aroused, it is not surprising that as psycho-pathological research has revealed, hatred towards near relatives may be of very considerable importance also as a determining factor in the production of neuroses. It has, in fact, been found that a repressed hatred may underlie a whole series of pathological symptoms in precisely the same manner as a repressed love.