Nancy Kulish

The Femininization of the Female Oedipal Complex, Part I: a Reconsideration of the Significance of Separation Issues

Freuds insights about the oedipus complex have been universalized to include the psychology of the girl. The authors argue that this crucial developmental phase for girls has uniquely feminine characteristics that have not been fully recognized or cohesively incorporated into psychoanalytic theories. This paper addresses these differences, which are based on characteristic patterns of object relationships, typical defenses, and social considerations. The authors argue that “female oedipal” is an oxymoron, and propose that this constellation be named “the Persephone complex” after the Greek myth of Persephone, which seems to capture better the typical situation of the little girl. They focus on the issue of separation and its complicated and necessary role in the triangular situation of females. Using illustrations from clinical material, the authors argue that the frequent appearance of separation material linked to triangular heterosexual competitive fantasies can and should be differentiated from material in which ideas about separation stem from dyadic and earlier issues. Misunderstanding how these separation conflicts tie into triangular “oedipal” relationships can lead to a “preoedipalization” of the dynamics of girls and women.

Female Exhibitionism: Identification, Competition and Camaraderie

The ancient figure of Baubo plays a pivotal role in the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone with an exhibitionistic act that brings Demeter out of her depression. The Baubo episode raises questions about the meaning of female exhibitionism, suggesting divergences from earlier psychoanalytic conceptualizations as either a perversion or a compensation for the lack of a penis. In line with contemporary thinking about primary femininity, such as that of Balsam or Elise, the authors propose a more inclusive understanding of female exhibitionism, which would encompass pleasure in the female body and its sexual and reproductive functions. They argue that female exhibitionism can reflect triangular or “oedipal” scenarios and the need to attract the male, identification with the mother, competition or camaraderie with other women, a sense of power in the female body and its capacities, as well as homoerotic impulses. The authors posit a dual early desire and identification with the mother that underlie and characterize female sexual development. The authors present clinical data from adolescent and adult cases of female exhibitionism which illustrate these Baubo‐like aspects and discuss the technical issues that are involved in such cases.

Countertransference and the female triangular situation

This paper represents an attempt toward reconciling contemporary changes in psychoanalytic understandings of female development, particularly in respect to separation issues, with their clinical applications to female patients. Psychoanalytic thinking typically has categorized separation conflicts as pre‐oedipal, but the authors suggest that these are an integral part of the triangular situation of the girl. The authors argue that an allegiance to erroneous theory and/or individual blind spots have led to the infantilization, pre‐oedipalization or cultural stereotyping of females, which constrains the effectiveness of their analyses. The authors present a selected review of the literature on gender‐based countertransference biases in both male and female analysts, with reference to female ‘oedipal’ material. Analytic case material of two women is presented which demonstrates how theoretical misperceptions and countertransferences to triangular separation conflicts can produce an impediment to progression in analysis.

THE WIDENING SCOPE OF INDICATIONS FOR PERVERSION

Much has changed in clinical practice and theory that bears on the diagnosis and treatment of perversion since Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). Definitions of perversion have been freed from assumptions of a heterosexual normality and from moralistic interpretations. The authors endorse the current emphasis on aggression and early narcissistic problems and include the notion of splitting and sexualized scenarios in their definition of perversion. They present several vignettes of male and female patients to demonstrate the debts owed to Freud’s theories and the way in which their thinking differs. They emphasize the understanding of the transference-countertransference picture and the patient’s management and control of excitement.

Twos and Threes: Musical Chairs in Female Psychic and Social Life

Jockeying for position in the context of a threesome is a major preoccupation in female social behavior, and in female inner experience, throughout the life cycle. This oscillating phenomenon can be thought of as “twos and threes.” While such configurations are often understood in terms of sibling rivalry or social influences, the focus here is on underlying female triangular dynamics. “Twos and threes” are differentiated from the more familiar rivalries among siblings and from the concept of sibling oedipal triangles. Clinical examples and a contemporary novel by Tana French are presented to demonstrate that concealed and overlooked female oedipal or persephonal conflicts may underlie these experiences and appear in the transference and countertransference.

The patient's objects in the analyst's mind.

In every analysis, the analyst develops an internal relationship with the patient’s objects—that is, the people in the patient’s life and mind. Sometimes these figures can inhabit the analyst’s mind as a source of data, but at other times, the analyst may feel preoccupied with or even invaded by them. The author presents two clinical cases: one in which the seeming absence of a good object in the patient’s mind made the analyst hesitate to proceed with an analysis, and another in which the patient’s preoccupation with a “bad” object was shared and mirrored by the analyst’s own inner preoccupation with the object. The use and experience of these two objects by the analyst are discussed with particular attention to the countertransference.

Edith Wharton’s Threshold Phobia and Two Worlds

The American novelist Edith Wharton suffered an unusual childhood neurotic symptom, a fear of crossing thresholds, a condition that might be called a “threshold phobia.” This symptom is identified and examined in autobiographical material, letters, diaries, and selected literary fiction and nonfiction left by Wharton to arrive at a formulation not previously drawn together. A fascinating theme—living or being trapped between “two worlds”—runs through much of the writer’s life and work. The phobia is related to this theme, and both can be linked more broadly to certain sexual conflicts in women. This understanding of Wharton’s phobia, it is argued, throws new light on the developmental issues and conflicts related to the female “oedipal” or triadic phase, characterized by the need to negotiate the two worlds of mother and of father.

Individualizing Gender and Sexuality: Theory and Practice

In this book Nancy Chodorow has compiled papers representing her current views on gender and sexuality which she has presented and/or published in a variety of settings and journals since 1999. This volume offers the reader a good sense of the thinking of a major American psychoanalytic theorist, including her impressions of major trends in the field and critiques of other contemporary theorists on gender and sexuality. The interesting, at times inventive, subjects of the chapters range from rethinking Melanie Klein on gender to homosexuality as a compromise formation. Chodorow’s voice is always thoughtful, at times challenging and at other times circumspect. As the title of the book suggests, she tries to individualize and to re-evaluate her and others’ earlier generalizations and theories about gender. Chodorow lays out her journey in finding her way from social scientist to clinical psychoanalyst and from a deep appreciation of Freud and Klein and identification with Loewald’s thinking to contemporary feminist theorizing on gender, which tends to be more comfortable in the relational psychoanalytic schools. In the first chapter she chronicles this personal trajectory in regard to psychoanalysis and women. She admits that she first approached psychoanalysis as an outsider but now feels at the center and still at times an outlier. She identifies herself as an American ego psychologist who also relies on Kleinian concepts. As she muses about her earlier writings, she says that her investigations always began with a question: how can we explain male dominance in society; how can we explain a woman’s desires to mother and to become a mother. The reader will find that inquiring mind throughout these essays. She has always worked with disparate theories and disciplines while mindful of their internal contradictions and their contradictions with each other. She has tried to synthesize these pieces into an interdisciplinary template. Let me begin out of sequence with Chodorow’s backward glance at her ground-breaking The Reproduction of Mothering, first published in 1978 and one of the most influential books in the social sciences and in the psychoanalytic understanding of gender. This work was certainly one of the most important influences for my own work in gender and sexuality, as it added a crucial missing dimension of patterns of object relations to the psychosexual developmental schema laid down by Freud and articulated in ego psychology. Beginning with the question of how mothering is reproduced, Chodorow posited differing effects of girls’ separating from the same sexed object (the mother) versus boys’ separating from a different sexed object on the formation of gender and sexuality. The book brought home the importance for the woman of her identifications with her mother, a trend in the contemporary psychoanalytic literature that has responded to Freud’s inattention to the subject. In her critique of her work, now almost four decades later and after becoming a clinical psychoanalyst, Chodorow shows how Book and Journal Reviews 419

Under the Skin: A Psychoanalytic Study of Body Modification

truth combined with ‘‘negative capability’’ – the capacity to tolerate mystery and doubt and the burden of ‘‘not knowing’’. (p. 215). Her preference for philosophical rather than psychoanalytic thinking is clear in this conclusion. It is difficult to sum up this very complex book which I found to be extremely valuable in its exposition of so many ideas and helpful to anyone researching the British School’s contributions to psychoanalysis and art. There is an extensive, impressive bibiliography. I found the book difficult to read through from cover to cover. Glover proves how very different each theorist is from each other. Throughout it seems evident that a position is taken that regards every moment of life to be ‘art’. This becomes so overly inclusive that what is traditionally known as ‘art’ or ‘an art object’ becomes irrelevant or lost.

Book Review: Container and Contained: THE EMBODIED SUBJECT: MINDING THE BODY IN PSYCHOANALYSIS. Edited by John P. Muller and Jane B. Tillman. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson, 2007, x + 126 pp.,

This collection of essays explores the mind-body continuum in psychoanalysis. It arose from a series of seminars on embodiment held at the Washington School of Psychiatry and encompasses diverse points of view, although Lacanian perspectives are prominent. Since many of the contributors are affiliated with the Austen Riggs Center, it is not surprising that the clinical cases include more disturbed hospitalized individuals, with the spotlight on unusual clinical examples of embodiment such as self-mutilation, psychotic fragmentation, and mimicry. A set of overarching questions runs through the collection: (1) Do our bodies determine how we think? If so, how does this happen and how does the body affect psychic structure? (2) What is the nature of metaphor, and can metaphor be considered a form of embodiment? (3) What is the role of language in the process of embodiment? The central question of this book, the relationship of mind and body, has vexed philosophy and psychoanalysis from their beginnings. It is taken up most clearly in a lucid essay by Roger Frie, who traces the history of theorizing about “the lived body” from Freud, to the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Ludwig Binswanger, to the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Frie reminds us that for Freud “the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego.” Yet subsequently ego psychology has promoted the split between Freud’s bodily based drives and the ego. Moreover, the essential clinical tool in psychoanalysis—free association— has emphasized language and verbalization. To advance his argument against this split, Frie acquaints us with the work of Merleau-Ponty, who, he argues, collapses the Cartesian duality of mind and body. For Merleau-Ponty, the lived body is not an object for the subject, but the way in which the subject exists in the world. That is to say, the mind can be understood only in terms of the body. We experience the world in ja PP a