Abstract

MANHAES, Maria P.. Femininity. Rev. bras. psicanál [online]. 2016, vol.50, n.1, pp.133-141. ISSN 0486-641X.

The author mentions her former works about the subject - "Women’s psychology" and "Oral frustration and phallicity". In this last work, she studies the emergence of active conducts, which are seen as "male", and consequent to old and intense oral sources that were unsolved. In this paper, the author attempts to understand women by taking into account four elements: castration, identification, masochism, and narcissism. Castration cannot be considered women’s main issue. Otherwise, the development of women’s personality would be based on an organ that exists in the other. Since moral masochism in men has been acknowledged, masochism is no longer a female attribute. Identification would be very intense in women, especially if we study identification in a woman who has been loving, what may lead her to lose her identity in higher or lower levels. Finally, narcissism, which, according to H. Deutsch, may be used as a guardian to protect her from losing her identity, mainly when there is a tendency to an intensive masochist renouncement. The author believes Freud, since Dora’s case, had a hard time understanding women for his personal reasons and for having had predominantly hysterical patients, who were skillful in their use of revenge.

Keywords : active conduct; castration; identification; masochism; narcissism.

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