fenichel considered that the apprentice complex offered a ready mode of enjoying dependence under a guise of future independence – temporary submission to the father's authority offering a means to becoming oneself a male in time. always ambivalent in that the ultimate goal is to replace the father, the complex may disguise a powerful degree of hostility, and was open to several forms of pathological distortion. if meant by a paternal threat, the complex may regress to a passive identification with the mother.