Overcoming obstacles in analysis: Is it possible to relinquish omnipotence and accept receptive femininity?

In his discussion of obstacles to progress in analysis, Freud gave emphasis to two factors, the operation of the death instinct and the repudiation of femininity. In this paper, I argue that it is more appropriate to think of the death instinct as an antilife instinct expressed as envy, which leads to destructive attacks against creative links. The prototype of these links is the early oral relationship between the infant and mother, which later is expressed as the genital relationship between adults in a couple. Such mutually interdependent relationships come to represent creativity and maternal care and are particularly likely to provoke envious attacks. The vulnerability of the receptive feminine position to such attacks may lead to a preference for a masculine identity based on omnipotent identifications with powerful phallic objects. Inevitably, such defensive masculinity inflicts further damage so that progress in analysis requires, first, a relinquishment of the omnipotent phallic identification and, second, an acceptance and valuing of femininity. Some of the difficulties in this area are illustrated in a patient who feared to use her intelligence because she saw it as a cruel masculine weapon.

[1]  K. Reader Civilisation and its discontents , 2019, Robert Bresson.

[2]  R. Britton The female castration complex: Freud’s big mistake? , 2018 .

[3]  H. Deutsch The Psychology of Women in Relation to the Functions of Reproduction , 2018 .

[4]  Karen Homey The Flight from Womanhood: The Masculinity-Complex in Women, as Viewed by Men and Women , 2018 .

[5]  Leslie C. Bell Psychoanalytic Theories of Gender , 2018 .

[6]  Christa Lee Kreimendahl Someday , 2016 .

[7]  R. Balsam Freud, females, childbirth, and dissidence: Margarete Hilferding, Karen Horney, and Otto Rank. , 2013, Psychoanalytic Review.

[8]  W. Bion,et al.  Attacks on Linking , 2013, The Psychoanalytic quarterly.

[9]  J. Steiner Seeing and Being Seen: Emerging from a Psychic Retreat , 2011 .

[10]  M. Feldman Some views on the manifestation of the death instinct in clinical work. , 2000, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[11]  V. Goldner Reading and Writing, Talking and Listening Introducing Studies in Gender and Sexuality , 2000 .

[12]  M. Dimen,et al.  The Engagement between Psychoanalysis and Feminism , 1997 .

[13]  D. Birksted‐breen Phallus, penis and mental space. , 1996, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[14]  S. Akhtar “Someday…” and “If Only…” Fantasies: Pathological Optimism and Inordinate Nostalgia as Related Forms of Idealization , 1996, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

[15]  H. Segal Phantasy and reality. , 1994, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[16]  Breen The Gender Conundrum , 1993 .

[17]  E. Person,et al.  [Psychoanalytic theories of gender identity]. , 1983, Psyche.

[18]  D. Breen The Gender conundrum : contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives on femininity and masculinity , 1993 .

[19]  A. E. Thompson Freud's pessimism, the death instinct, and the theme of disintegration in analysis terminable and interminable , 1991 .

[20]  Blum Hp The value of reconstruction in adult psychoanalysis. , 1980 .

[21]  D. Lee,et al.  Children and language : reading and writing, talking and listening , 1979 .

[22]  J. Chasseguet-smirgel Freud and female sexuality. The consideration of some blind spots in the exploration of the 'dark continent'. , 1976, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[23]  Sigmund Freud,et al.  Creative writers and day-dreaming (1908) , 1971 .

[24]  H. Rosenfeld A clinical approach to the psychoanalytic theory of the life and death instincts: an investigation into the aggressive aspects of narcissism. , 1971, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[25]  I. Hellman Some Observations on Mothers of Children with Intellectual Inhibitions , 1954 .

[26]  Margaret Mahler-Schoenberger Pseudoimbecility: A Magic Cap of Invisibility , 1942 .

[27]  Sigmund Freud,et al.  Analysis terminable and interminable. , 1937 .

[28]  J. Riviere Womanliness as a masquerade. , 2005 .

[29]  K. Horney The flight from womanhood: the masculinity-complex in women, as viewed by men and by women. , 1926 .