The Black Man and the Mermaid: Desire and Disruption in the Analytic Relationship

This paper considers the impact of desexualization of the maternal on the development of female sexuality. A “chance encounter” revealing a desire in the female analyst, previously unsuspected, disrupts a female patient's prior sense of homoerotic immersion with the analyst. I argue that a girl's would-be oedipal competition is encased within a patriarchal structuring of sexuality where the mother is rendered solely reproductive and preoedipal, not erotically sexual. I examine the meanings for a patient of internalizing a female figure, her analyst, who is viewed as both maternal and sexual. I suggest that a female sense of genital inadequacy and inferiority may have a component of not being able to link the mother's (and in the transference, the analyst's) use of her genitals with her use of her mind/maternal function. I unfold a thesis regarding maternal desexualization that I believe, given mother–infant symbiosis, has rather extensive applicability, and that can lead to viewing any third party as a “dark” interloper.     

The Primary Maternal Oedipal Situation and Female Homoerotic Desire

In this paper, I closely examine classical psychoanalytic theory on the female oedipal complex in order to shed light on same-sex object choice. Given that the mother is the first love object for the girl as well as for the boy, the girl's object relational constellation centrally involves the experience of homoeroticism as well as heteroeroticism. Yet, it remains a question as to whether a mother can see her daughter as a sexual subject; can mother–daughter homoerotic desire be experienced and validated by the mother? That a girl desires her mother is generally not seen or registered by the mother; it remains an unrecognized desire.

I suggest that the obscuring of female desire has to do centrally with the fate of eroticism in the early mother–daughter relationship. I propose relabeling the “negative oedipal complex” in girls as “the primary maternal oedipal situation.” Issues involving invisibility or stigmatization of one's erotic desire likely pose a significant challenge to the self–esteem of many lesbians. It is important in clinical work with lesbian patients to be open to a complex interweaving of developmental experiences, varying with each individual, some of which may have been damaging to, and others strengthening of, female sexuality.     

Mothers and Daughters from Today's Psychoanalytic Perspective

In this paper, I review and synthesize findings that may help us remodel the way we think about the vicissitudes of the mother-daughter relationship. Although exciting new ideas are burgeoning in the literature, there seems to be a lag between discoveries and their integration into clinical practice. Older theories emphasizing separation and the girl's “change of libidinal object” from mother to father reflect linear models that do not encompass the development we observe and experience. Newer theories depict development as interactive and relational throughout the life cycle—leading not to separation but to autonomy with connectedness. Applying male models to the female superego or speaking of the “female Oedipus complex” is misleading. New myths are being proposed to describe the conflicts integral to the girl's triangular situation. Applying the myth of Persephone and Demeter has been especially instructive. Many analysts tend to pathologize or infantilize the woman's ongoing tie to her mother and tend to misunderstand the intense ambivalence between daughter and mother. Once we recognize that the course of development is not linear, we should expect to see the woman revisiting, reexamining, and resynthesizing representations of self-versus-mother and self-with-mother over her lifetime.     

Demeter's Compromise: Separation,Loss, and Reconnection in Mothers with Daughters Entering Adulthood

Drawing on contemporary theory of female development that focuses on the dynamics of the mother/daughter relationship regarding issues of separation and individuation, this article examines the treatment of a middle aged mother as she navigates her way through her daughter's adolescence and early adulthood. Psychoanalytic object relations, psychoanalytic relational theory, and feminist theory serve to frame an understanding of the case material in terms of developmental challenges that are uniquely female. Issues around mother/daughter attachment, separation, competition, conflict, and love are explored in the relationships between the patient and her mother, the patient and her daughter, and the patient and the therapist. The therapist's countertransference, intensified by her relationships with her own mother and daughter, suggests the possibility of both pitfalls and opportunities in the treatment. The article attempts to address a gap in psychoanalytic developmental theory, which offers little understanding of the challenges for women in midlife.     

OEDIPUS REX: WHERE ARE WE GOING,ESPECIALLY WITH FEMALES?

The Oedipus myth usefully informs triangulated object relations, though males, females, and “humankind” can become overly interchangeable. Freud's intentions to enlighten sexed gender are nowadays obscured. In 1931, he rejected Oedipus for females. Counterreactive gender blindness forecloses exploration about female development. Loewald's (1979) view of Oedipus Rex emancipates male heterosexuals from a recurring (universal), regressive pull back to mother. Ogden (1987) offers further insights into earliest female development. The author suggests a lifelong, progressive trajectory of mother/daughter closeness, in synch with a girl's shared slow body development into maturity and childbearing. Freeing the female dyad from obligatory pathological interpretation may inspire fresh sex and gender clinical theory.     

Between Races and Generations: Materializing Race and Kinship in Moraga and Irigaray

Juxtaposing Cherríe Moraga's Loving in the War Years and Luce Irigaray's Speculum of the Other Woman, I explore the ways that sex and race intersect to complicate an Irigarayan account of the relations between mother and daughter. Irigaray's work is an effective tool for understanding the disruptive and potentially healing desire between mothers and daughters, but her insistence on sex as primary difference must be challenged in order to acknowledge the intersectionality of sex and race. Working from recent work on the psychoanalysis of race, I argue that whiteness functions as a master signifier in its own right, and as a means of differentiation between the light‐skinned Moraga and her brown‐skinned mother. Irigaray's concept of blood deepens Moraga's account of her healing and subversive return to her mother. The juxtaposition of Moraga, Irigaray, and contemporary psychoanalysis of race can allow for a necessary revision of Irigaray's psychoanalysis that acknowledges the ways in which sexual difference is indexed by race and sheds new light on her account of the mother–daughter relation.     

The empty mother: women's fear of their destructive envy

This paper explains the importance of understanding the little girl's envy of her mother and how the resolution of this envy (and her fear of other women's envy) is crucial to a woman's development. I postulate that envy is a universal part of female development (with more or less destructive effects on a woman's personality, depending on the libidinal/sexual components of her attachment to both parents). I hope to show that by interpreting a woman's fear of her destructive envy, one can free her not only to enjoy her own sexuality and to find appropriate ways to express her aggression, but also to be more creative. I believe that guilt about these envious feelings often leads to profound inhibitions and masochistic behavior. Two clinical examples illustrate how envy manifests itself in treatment with a woman analyst, and how the working through of intense envious feelings leads to a greater ability to enjoy one's own capacities without constant fear of retribution.     

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.     

Keeping mother alive: psychotherapy with a teenage mother following human trafficking

The power of new traumatic events to reignite memories and the distress of traumatic experiences earlier in life is well known to psychotherapists. When the recent trauma has been extreme, the task of assisting the patient to understand their response in the light of their earlier experience can be doubly challenging. This paper describes the therapy with an adolescent girl and her infant daughter, following the girl's escape from illegal detention, physical abuse and forced prostitution, after she was trafficked to the UK from Eastern Europe. The discussion works towards developing an understanding of the emotional interchange between the mother and infant, and the influence of the mother's traumatic experiences, on that interchange. Projective identification could be seen to occur from the mother, into her daughter, in a reversal of the situation traditionally described. The function of this for the mother and the impact on the developing infant, are considered.     

Lesbianism: Some Developmental and Psychodynamic Considerations

In order to further our understanding of lesbianism the newer ideas of female development and of sexual object choice must be integrated into psychoanalytic theory. This includes such concepts as primary femininity, the girl's primary wish for a baby, and female genital sensations leading to a gradual understanding of female anatomy. Ties to each parent develop in tandem, not sequentially. Boys and girls have different attachment and separation experiences. Genital release, a major organizer of male psychological development, may not be as important as intimacy in the girl's development. Multitudes of environmental influences play a role in establishing gender identity, gender role and sexual object choice. Nature and nurture interact. Homosexuality and psychopathology are not connected and psychodynamics is not the same as etiology. A case presentation focuses on the role of aggression in female development. The importance of ambivalence is considered in its impact on maternal identification and sexual object choice.     

Sexual Outcasts: The Perceived Impact of Body Weight and Gender on Sexuality1

A person's weight may be perceived as an important aspect of his or her sexuality and a significant determinant of his or her interpersonal sexual experiences. However, researchers interested in body weight and sexuality have focused exclusively on sexual disorders found in individuals with eating disorders; consequently, little is known about people's beliefs about weight and sexuality, despite the individual and interpersonal significance of such beliefs. Undergraduates received information about a male or female, obese or normal-weight stimulus person and then evaluated that person along several dimensions related to sexuality. Participants believed that an obese man's sexual experiences would be highly similar to those of a normal-weight man. However, participants viewed an obese woman as less sexually attractive, skilled, warm, and responsive, and perceived her as less likely to experience desire and various sexual behaviors than a normal-weight woman. In addition, participants believed that an obese woman was less sexually attractive, skilled, warm, and responsive than an obese man.     

Silence, pleasure and agency: sexuality of unmarried girls in Dakar, Senegal

The article investigates the way unmarried Muslim girls in contemporary Dakar construct their sexuality. It explores in what way and to what extent female sexuality is being silenced, and if any, in what way pleasure and sexual agency are present in the narratives of those girls about their intimate lives. Such an analysis is called for in relation to understanding young people’s safe sex practices and concerns about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Women’s own experiences and understandings are often downplayed in studies that focus on and reproduce the dominant discourse of patriarchal control. This article shows the silencing in a male-centered construction of pre-marital sexuality in Dakar, but also reveals female pleasure and sexual agency. This multi-dimensional understanding of female sexuality of Muslim girls in Senegal provides a more dynamic insight of the power processes surrounding safe sex practices.     

Sensual Enjoyment,Sexual Excitement,and Femininity: Appreciating the Female Sexual Response

We discuss the female sexual response with a recognition of the distinction between sensuality and sexuality and an account of the development of femininity; present an account of the sexual response of women as a varied but describable experience; and consider the successes and problems female and male therapists have in empathic perception of a woman's account of her sexual experiences.     

Female Adolescents, Sexual Empowerment and Desire: A Missing Discourse of Gender Inequity

In this commentary, I offer a response to Lamb & Peterson (2011). I base these comments on the feminist scholarship on adolescent girls’ healthy sexuality that Lamb (2010a) critiqued in the first of this series. I address and redress several of her concerns by providing the context and history of my own research and recovering the meanings of desire, pleasure and subjectivity as they appeared in this body of work. I then engage Lamb and Peterson’s points of consensus about the role of sexual empowerment in adolescent girls’ healthy sexuality by 1) positioning sexualization as more than a context; 2) identifying a missing discourse of gender inequity as a central issue in their discussion; and 3) explaining how the use of theory and interpretation in feminist research methods is necessary for and distinct from a surface reading of narratives of lived experience. Finally, I will provide examples of some alternative paths for supporting healthy adolescent women’s sexuality that extend beyond school-based sex education and media literacy into alternative engagements with girls through technology, media activism and participatory practices.     

THE RAPE OF MEDUSA IN THE TEMPLE OF ATHENA: ASPECTS OF TRIANGULATION IN THE GIRL2

The relationship between the Greek goddess Athena and her father Zeus, together with the competitive hostility she displays towards other females, is presented as illustrating some previously neglected aspects of triangular developmental conflicts in the little girl. Literature on ‘the Oedipus complex in the female’ is reviewed and discussed. The mythological early histories of both Athena and the female monster Medusa are examined for the light they can shed on female developmental vicissitudes and resultant conflicts in both women and men. Unconscious split representations of women as assertive, phallic and dangerous, or alternatively passive, castrated and receptive result in defensive repudiation of the idea that a woman can be both actively assertive and also feminine and sexual. Athena's enraged action of transforming the beautiful young maiden Medusa into a monster as punishment for the ‘crime’ of having been raped in her temple is discussed as illustrating an outcome of the lack of resolution of the little girl's early triangular conflicts.     

Using psychoanalytic concepts to inform interpretations and direct interventions with a baby in working with infants and parents

Abstract

How can some classical Freudian concepts such as defense, transference, infantile sexuality, and the role of the body ego and superego in the first year of life be applied to help the analyst working with parent–infant dyads? The case of a newborn that could not look at her mother, who did not feel empathy towards this child conceived as a result of an egg donation, was understood using Winnicott’s notion of early superego and the lack of libidinal pleasure. The notion of defenses towards primitive anxiety and the role of unconscious maternal functioning were helpful in helping the child as well as the parents to regulate their interactions.     

Breaking the Silence Surrounding Female Adolescent Sexual Desire

Abstract

This review of the literature related to female adolescent sexual desire reveals that, in spite of interest by feminist scholars, actual discourse around sexual desire and bodily pleasure associated with female sexuality appears to be lacking for the majority of adolescent girls. In our culture females are the objects of male desire, hence the focus on attractiveness. Little attention has been paid to their embodiment, the inner sense of their own sexual desire. Sexual desire has traditionally been accepted as part of male sexual development and is associated with positive sexual identity for men. Researchers stress the importance of increasing sex-positive attitudes towards female sexual desire, in order to counter much of the shame and confusion experienced by females, especially during adolescence. The double standard is still being conveyed to young women through popular culture, parents, peers, and schools. Sex education primarily emphasizes the dangers of sex. The media stresses the importance of attractiveness and women as sex objects rather than agents of their own sexual desires. Researchers suggest that a young woman's ability to be conscientious about and fully present in her sexual experiences is correlated with her ability to act as an agent. The ability to make responsible and self-affirming sexual decisions is a crucial act of agency.