Female Sexuality: New Psychoanalytic Views

Female Sexuality represents a distinct contribution to the psychoanalytic study of feminine psychology and sexual identity. First published in France as Recherches psychanalytiques nouvelles sur la sexualité féminine, the book consists of six major essays and a comprehensive introduction which reviews the various approaches to the subject.

Freudian and non-Freudian views on female sexuality are carefully examined, thus providing a valuable perspective from which to view the authors' subsequent discussions.

"The present authors," writes Dr J. Chasseguet-Smirgel in her introduction, "have attempted as far as possible to free their theoretical ideas and their clinical interpretations from the unconscious fantasies which distort scientific objectivity."

Christian David thus uses a clinical history to study masculine myths about femininity; Catherine Luquet-Parat attributes an important role to female masochism in the young girl's "change of object"; Béla Grunberger examines the origins of female narcissism; Joyce McDougall shows that female homosexuality must be integrated to achieve a harmonious feminine nature; and Maria Torok gives masculinity wishes and penis-envy a new role and meaning.

In the last essay in this significant work, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel - a training analyst of the French Psychoanalytic Association - describes the young girl's relationship with her father and discusses the aspects of this relationship which contribute an important dimension to female guilt.

Female Sexuality: New Psychoanalytic Views helps fill a long-apparent need for authorative analyses in this area of growing interest.

Contributors: Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, Catherine Luquet-Parat, Béla Grunberger, Joyce McDougall, Maria Torok, and Christian David