The Gender Conundrum: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Femininity and Masculinity (The New Library of Psychoanalysis)

In The Gender Conundrum Dana Birksted-Breen brings together for the first time key psychoanalytic papers on the subject of femininity and masculinity from the very different British, French, and American perspectives. The papers are gathered around the central issue of the interplay of body and psyche in psychoanalysis. The editor sees the positive use of this given tension and duality as the key to real understanding of the questions currently surrounding gender identity. As well as addressing the outspoken controversy over the understanding of femininity, she shows that there has been a more silent revolution in the understanding of masculinity. Offering an international perspective, this collection of seminal papers with introductions of exemplary clarity fills a considerable gap in the literature, providing a classic text for psychoanalysis and gender studies. Behavioral Sciences Book Cover 1 Title 4 Contents 5 Acknowledgements 8 General introduction 10 Introduction 52 Son and father 58 The female Oedipus complex and the relationship to the body 76 The missing link: parental sexuality in the Oedipus complex 91 Introduction 106 Freud and female sexuality: the consideration of some blind spots in the exploration of the 'dark continent' 114 Concepts of vaginal orgasm 134 The phallic shadow 139 Inquiry into femininity 154 On the feminine and the masculine: afterthoughts on Jacqueline Cosnier's book, Destins de la feminite 175 Introduction 194 Female genital anxieties, conflicts and typical mastery modes 198 'The weak spot';some observations on male sexuality 221 Introduction 240 The dead father: on early psychic trauma and its relation to disturbance in sexual identity and in creative activity 242 Dis-identifying from mother: its special importance for the boy 267 Clinical notes on the identification with the little girl 274 To the limits of male heterosexuality: the vagina-man 282 Bibliography 295 Name index 307 Subject index 310 The Oedipus complex formed the kernel of Freud's understanding of human sexuality, and he comments: 'None of the findings of psychoanalytic research has provoked such embittered denials, such fierce opposition - or such amusing contortions - on the part of critics as this indication of the childhood impulses towards incest which persist in the unconscious'. Discussing femininity and masculinity from the different British, French and American perspectives, these papers centre on the interplay of body and psyche in psychoanalysis. The positive use of this tension is regarded as the key to understanding questions currently surrounding gender identity. Offering an international perspective on the masculing and feminine interplay of body and psyche in psychoanalysis, this book fills a considerable gap in the literature, providing a classic text for psychoanalysis and gender studies. Offering an international perspective on the masculine and feminine interplay of body and psyche in psychoanalysis, this book fills a considerable gap in the literature, providing a classic text for psychoanalysis and gender studies