Laplanche and Pontalis note that Freud discovers the Oedipus complex in in the course of his self analysis, but that he doesn't give a generalized theoretical form to it until in The Ego and the Id, and that, between these two formulations, Oedipus leads a more or less marginal existence, confined for example to a separate chapter on object choice at puberty (Three Essays), or to a chapter on typical dreams (The Interpretation of Dreams).