The Phallic Astration Complex and Primary Femininity: Paired Developmental Lines toward Female Gender Identity

Abstract

I suggest that two developmental lines contribute to the achievement of female gender identity. One is rooted in the phallic Castration complex, and the other in primary femininity. Far from being mutually exclusive, the two comprise necessary aspects of every girl's progress toward becoming a woman. To that extent, every woman's analysis will include the analysis of compromise formations that emerge from both. In distinguishing clinical manifestations of each developmental line, I suggest that it may be useful to conceptualize primary femininity and the phallic castration complex as affect-defense configurations which incorporate two fundamentally different ideas about danger. In conflicts of primary femininity, danger is anticipated: anxiety is the signal for compromise formation, since what is actually possessed (the female genital). is valued and is therefore imagined as subject to danger. In the phallic castration complex, danger is imagined already to have occurred. Depressive affectbecomes the primary motive for defense, based on a fantasy that what is valued (the male genital) has already been lost This distinction may facilitate our efforts to specify exactly how recent revisions in theories of female development have explicit implications for practice.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abraham, K. (1912). Notes on the psychoanalytic investigation and treatment of manic-depressive insanity and allied conditions. In Selected Papers. New York: Basic Boob, 1953, pp. 137–156.

Barnett, M. C. , (1966). Vaginal awareness in the infancy and childhood of girls. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 14:129–141.

Bernstein, D. (1993). Female Identity Conflict in Clinical Practice. New York: York Aronson.

Brenner, C. , (1982). The Mind in Conflict. New York: Int. Univ. Press.

Brenner, C. (1982). A psychoanalytic perspective on depression. J. Assn, 39:25–43.

Chehrazi, S. (1986). Female psychology: a review. J. Amer. Psychonal. Assn., 34:141–162.

Chiland, C. (1980). Clinical practice, theory and their relationship in regard to female secuality. Int. J. Psychoanal, 61:359–365.

Fast, I. . (1979). Developments in gender identity gender differentiation in girls. Int. J. Psychoanal, 60:443–435.

Fast, I. (1990). Aspects of early gender development: toward a reformulation. Psychoanal. Psychol. 7 (Suppl.): 105–118.

10.

Freud, S. , (1937). Analysis terminable and interminable. S. E., 23:216–253.

11.

Greenacre, P. (1950). Special problems of early female sexual development. Psychoanal. Study Child, 5:12–138.

12.

Grossman, W. & Stewart, W. (1976). Penis envy. from childhood wish to developmental metaphor. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn, 24(Suppl.):193–213.

13.

Horney, K. , (1924). On the genesis of the castration complex in women. Int. J. Psychoanal., 5:50–65.

14.

Horney, K. (1926). The flight from womanhood: the masculinity complex in women. Int. J. Psychoanal., 7:324–339.

15.

Jones, E. (1927). The early development of female sexuality. In Papers on Psychoanalysis, Boston: Beacon Press, 1961, pp. 438–451.

16.

Jones, E. , (1933). The Phallic phase. In Papers on Psychoanalysis, pp. 452–484.

17.

Jones, E. (1935). Early female secuality. In Papers on Psychoanalysis, pp. 485–495.

18.

Kalinich, L. . (1993). One the sense of absence: a perspective on womanly issues. Psychoanal. Q., 57:206–228.

19.

Kestenberg, J. S. (1968). Outside and inside, male and femal. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 16:457–520.

20.

Kleeman, J. ,(1975). Genital self-stimulation in infant and toddler girls. In Masturbation: from Infancy to Senescence, ed. I. Marcus & J. Francis . New York: Int. Univ. Press, pp. 77–106.

21.

Kleeman, J. . (1976). Freud's views on early female secuality in the light of direct child observation. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 24 (Suppl.): 3–27.

22.

Kubie, L. (1974). The drive to become both sexes. Psychoanal. Q., 43:349–426.

23.

Mayer, E. L. (1983). Review of H. Roiphe and E. Galenson. Infantile Origins of Sexual Identity. Int. J. Psychoanal., 64:365–369.

24.

Mayer, E. L. , (1985). Everybody must be just like me: observations on female castration anxiety. Int. J. Psychoanal., 66:331–347.

25.

Mayer, E. L. (1991). Towers and enclosed spaces: a preliminary report on gender differences in children's reactions to block structures. Psychoanal. Inq., 11:480–510.

26.

Mendell, D. (1988). Early female development: from birth through latency. In Critical Psychophysical Passages in the Life of a Woman, ed. J. Offerman-Zuckerberg . New York: Plenum, pp. 17–36.

27.

Miller, J. B. (1973). Psychoanalysic and Women. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

28.

Rado, S. , (1928). The problem of melancholia. Int. J. Psychoanal., 9:420–438.

29.

Rako, S. & Mazer, H. , Eds. (1983). Semrad: The Heart of a Therapist New York: Aronson, P. 29.

30.

Renik, O. (1990). Comments on the clinical analysis of anxiety and depressive affect. Psychoanal. Q. 59:226–248.

31.

Renik, O. (1992). Use of the analyst as a fetish. Psychoanal. Q., 61:542–563.

32.

Richards, A. K. . (1592). The influence of sphincter control and genital sensation on body image and gender identity in women. Psyhoanal Q, 61:331–351.

33.

Richard, A. K. (1993). Resistance to the concept of female genital anxiety. Unpublished paper.

34.

Roiphe, H. & Galenson, E. (1981). Infanfile Origins of Sexual Identity. New York: Int. Univ. Press.

35.

Schuker, N. & Levinson, N. , (1991). Female Psychology: An Annotated Psychoanalytic Bibliography. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.

36.

Stoller, R. (1968). The. Sense of femaleness. Psychoanal. Q., 37:42–55.

37.

Tyson, P. (1982). Primary femininity. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 24(Suppl.): 59–78.

38.

Tyson, P. , (1982). A developmental line of gender identity, gender role, and choice of love object. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 30:61–86.

39.

Tyson, P. (1986. Female psychological development. Ann. Psychoanal, 4:357–373. New York: Int. Univ Press.

40.

Tyson, P. , & Tysom, R. (1990) Development: An Integration. New Haven, CT: Yale. Univ. Press.