Ethel Spector Person

Extreme Boyhood Femininity: Isolated Behavior or Pervasive Disorder?

Twenty-five extremely feminine boys with DSM-III diagnosis of gender identity disorder of childhood were evaluated for the presence of behavioral disturbances, social competence and separation anxiety. Using the Child Behavior Checklist created by Achenbach and Edelbrock in 1983, 84% of feminine boys were reported to display behavioral disturbances usually seen in clinic-referred children. Sixty-four percent of the sample had difficulties with peers that were comparable to those of psychiatric-referred boys. Sixty percent of the sample met the criteria for diagnosis of DSM-III separation anxiety disorder. Only one child in sample fell within the normal range on all three of these parameters. Results suggest extreme boyhood femininity is not an isolated finding, but part of a more pervasive psychological disturbance. Additional clinical findings support this contentione.

Gender differences in sexual behaviors and fantasies in a college population

This study presents male and female responses of 193 university students to questions about sexual experiences and fantasies. There are few significant gender differences in experiences, but many in fantasies. Males fantasized about sex more and exhibited greater interest in partner variation and in the spectrum from domination to sadism. While male sexuality is often described as aggressive/sadistic and female sexuality as passive/masochistic, most men and women in our population do not report fantasies supporting such stereotypes.

As the Wheel Turns: A Centennial Reflection On Freud's tHree Essays On the Theory of Sexuality:

Freuds theories of psychosexual development, while highly original, were anchored in the explosion of scientific studies of sex in the nineteenth century. Most of these studies were based on masturbation, homosexuality, and deviance, with little attention given to normal sexuality. Around the turn of the century, the narrow interest in pathological sexuality and sexual physiology gradually gave way to a broader interest in normal sexuality. It was in the context of these expanding studies of sexuality that Freud proposed the first psychological view of sexuality, a theory that defined sex as being at the interface between soma and psyche. Libido theory, which Freud developed, is a theory of drives and conflicts. For Freud, libido was the major force in personality development, and he posited sexual conflicts as the heart of neuroses, sexual fixations as the essence of perversions. This article traces the way Freuds libido theory has served as one of the mainsprings in the development of psychoanalytic theory. It also addresses the major revisions that have taken place in libido theory, with a focus primarily on object relations theory, and the impact of culture on the way sex and sexual mores are parsed.Freuds theories of psychosexual development, while highly original, were anchored in the explosion of scientific studies of sex in the nineteenth century. Most of these studies were based on masturbation, homosexuality, and deviance, with little attention given to normal sexuality. Around the turn of the century, the narrow interest in pathological sexuality and sexual physiology gradually gave way to a broader interest in normal sexuality. It was in the context of these expanding studies of sexuality that Freud proposed the first psychological view of sexuality, a theory that defined sex as being at the interface between soma and psyche. Libido theory, which Freud developed, is a theory of drives and conflicts. For Freud, libido was the major force in personality development, and he posited sexual conflicts as the heart of neuroses, sexual fixations as the essence of perversions. This article traces the way Freuds libido theory has served as one of the mainsprings in the development of psychoanalytic theory. It also addresses the major revisions that have taken place in libido theory, with a focus primarily on object relations theory, and the impact of culture on the way sex and sexual mores are parsed.

A new look at core gender and gender role identity in women.

T word gender derives from the Latin genus, meaning birth, race, or kind, a noun itself derived from the verb gignere, meaning to beget or to be born. In its original sense, gender is a grammatical term denoting a subclass of a part of speech (noun, pronoun, etc.) associated (often arbitrarily) with a sex (male or female) or with neither (neuter). The modern conceptualization of gender as distinct from sexuality, a groundbreaking insight, was first introduced by the researcher John Money (1956, 1973), who through his pioneering studies of intersexed patients was able to make the distinction. He borrowed the term gender from its provenance in linguistics and introduced it into the medical and psychological literature. Robert Stoller (1968) sharpened the distinction between femaleness and maleness (sex) and femininity and masculinity (gender) and originated the term core gender identity, meaning self-identification as female or male. Catharine Stimpson (in press) defines gender as the “ ‘complex organization’ that various societies have constructed on the biological differences between men and women and that then go on to regulate them.” She notes that for the individual, gender operates as “a subjective identity, a person’s own sense of what it feels like to belong to a sex and to a gender.” Yet, as Stimpson and all observers agree, there are those who feel uncomfortable in their culturally mandated roles—hence their self-identification as transsexuals, transvestites, or she-males. Money and his colleagues demonstrated that the first and crucial step in gender differentiation is the child’s self-designation as male or female, which evolves according to the sex of assignment and has ja p a

Harry Benjamin: Creative Maverick

I began to write this paper in 1972, when I was researching transsexualism and became fascinated with the background of the father of transsexualism. Benjamin wanted me to write about him after his death and I was eager to do so. I interviewed him formally a dozen times and came to know him more informally as I was spending hours in his office interviewing transsexual patients. In 1972, between Madison and Park Avenues, in the heart of boutiquedom, was the ground-floor office of a doctor with one of the strangest clienteles in Manhattan. If one sat in the sedate waiting room long enough, one would see recognizable New York politicos coming for their periodic testosterone injections to ward off impotence or a Buccellati-bejeweled woman seeking advice about how to confront her lover with his homosexual liaison, just uncovered by her private detective. But there was another group of patients too. On a typical day, in one corner sat a man with longish hair and a mild swelling of breasts under his shirt; in the leather lounge chair was someone who at first glance appeared to be a showgirl but

Knowledge and authority: The Godfather fantasy.

Three strategies are tentatively proposed by which human beings try to assuage the need for transcendence: (1) seizing the godhead; (2) submission to God; and (3) the godfather fantasy, whereby an attempt is made to clothe a mere mortal in the cloak of godly power. These strategies are connected to our innate, often conflicted, tendencies to obedience and rebellion, later elaborated into submission to authority or resistance to or cooptation of authority. These psychic tendencies are illustrated in Dostoevskys “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor” and in Mario Puzos The Godfather, both brilliant demonstrations of social hierarchical control. The almost universal pull to obedience is demonstrated in the research of Stanley Milgram on obedience in hierarchical situations and theorized by Freud in his formulation of “the thirst for obedience” as a product of infantile life. It is proposed that the function of the group mind, in the form of ideology, is to counter anxieties generated throughout life, not only the remnants of childhood anxiety but also fears of death and oblivion. That a persons will to power can get out of hand and lead to disaster hardly needs saying; yet the will to submission, when connected to a shared ideology, can lead to results no less devastating. More people are killed in the name of an ideological cause run amok than are destroyed by virtue of thwarted passion, personal vendettas, criminality, or greed.

A sadomasochistic transference: its relation to distortions in the rapprochement subphase.

The development of a rageful sadomasochistic transference early in an analysis is presented. We describe key interventions that foster its resolution and offer a reconstruction of the patients early life, focusing on difficulty in the rapprochement phase. We believe that the intense and difficult to manage sadomasochistic transference was linked to a repudiation of both preoedipal and oedipal triangulation, resulting in the perpetuation of a hostile dependent mother-child dyad and in the patients unconscious belief that sadomasochistic interactions were the only means of establishing and maintaining a close relationship.

Initiation Fantasies and Transvestitism Discussion

NITIATION FANTASIES, APTLY NAMED BY DR. JUCOVY, are not I only of central significance in the fantasy life of this one transvestitic patient, but permeate the collective fantasy life of transvestites. In order to verify the widespread existence of such fantasies among transvestites, one need only glance though the personal columns of any sex newspaper or magazine; many letters from transvestites invite the acquaintance of a woman (or another transvestite) for purposes of instruction in the art of dress: “. . . novice TV wishes to meet T.V.s, Ts, interested females to dress me, make me up, sincere, go out together,” “. . . wish help of someone to turn me into complete woman.. , ,” This theme of initiation may also be masochistically elaborated; for example, “Servant in silks: Teach me, dress me, make me up, scold me, but don’t hurt me . . . my wife has tried but no person could satisfy this need to be totally female. Liberate me. . . . ”

A Discussion of Jack Drescher's “Handle with Care: The Psychoanalysis of a Touchy Case”

The author discusses Jack Dreschers paper “The Psychoanalysis of a Touchy Case.” The discussion takes up issues related to Dreschers patients symptoms, his long-term relationship, and his developmental history as a gay man. This discussion focuses not only on the nature of the patients problems, but also draws attention to the helpful clinical ways in which Drescher approached his patient, and the way in which Dreschers approach differed from the patients earlier encounters with other therapists.

Psyche And Society: Explorations In Psychoanalytic Sociology. By Robert Endleman

There is no division between the outside ivorld, the maternal breast, i.e., the white Iiotel, and the patient. This is a customary analytic interpretation used to explain the patient’s gross manuscript and its contents as autoeroticism. The interpretation belongs to Frau Erdman’s treatment ;IS a hysteric. Elsewhere ‘I’homas liints that all of us check into a \\‘liite Hotel and that tlie train carrying us there, our stay there, our departure and reemergence are the basic building blocks of existence iit the instinctu;il level that persists below, so to speak, the other. \\‘hat Tlionias reiterates in this book is the po~ver, known since the beginning of literature, of fiction to illuminate, dramatize, and bring t o life theories, esperiments, i111d facts thilt nppe;ir dry in their USLI;II esposition. T o creritc ;I life story that illustrates ;i divergent aspect of psyclioandytic theory requires both the craft of a gifted writer and a level of.iitiderstaiiding of individual psychology and psychoanalysis that are rare even among practitioners. The contemporary understanding that it is tlie trivia, the details, tlie small asides, that lead to psychotherapeutic etigagenierit-rather than the broad sweep of reconstruction of the infantile neurosis-is present throughout the novel. ‘Ilionias manages to convey this lively sense of :in ongoing therapy while at tlic same time, by incrementally delivering bits of information about Lisa Erdniiin’s past, faithfiillg inipersonating Freud’s great case studies. \\’hat ‘I’homas lias achieved brings Freud’s theoretical intent into the study of ;i life: a remarkable feat. 1 recommend The IV/iifc Hofel with great pleasure, and a rereading of llejoiirl the Pleasiire Principle would be fascinating iis well.