Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/12

 KARL ABRAHAM

may be made to a little girl with respect to her own body. Her doubts may be relieved by telling her that she will grow as big as her mother, that she will have long hair like her sister, etc., and she will be satisfied with these assurances ; but the subsequent growth of a male organ one cannot promise her. However in this latter case the little girl herself makes use of the method that has often been successful ; for a long time she seems to cling to the hope of this expectation being fulfilled as to something that is obvious, as though the idea of a life-long defect were quite incomprehensible to her.

The following observation of a little girl, two years old, is particularly instructive in this respect. The little one saw her parents taking coifee at table. A box of cigars stood on a low cabinet near by. The child opened the box, took out a cigar and brought it to her father. She went back and brought one for her mother. Then she took a third cigar and held it out against the lower part of her body. Her mother put the three cigars back in the box. The chUd waited a little while and then played the same game over again.

The repetition of this game excluded its being due to chance. Its meaning is clear ; the little one grants her mother a male organ like her father's. She represents the possession of the organ not as a privilege of men but of adults in general, and then she can expect to get one herself in the future. A cigar is not only a suitable symbol for the child's wish on account of its form. The child of course has long noticed that only her father smokes cigars and not her mother. The tendency to put man and woman on an equaUty is palpably expressed in presenting a cigar to her mother as well.

We are well acquainted with the attempts of little girls to adopt the male position in urination. Their narcissism cannot endure their not being able to do what another can, and therefore they endeavour to arouse the impression that their physical form does not prevent them from doing the same as boys do.

When a child sees its brother or sister receive sometliing to eat or play with which it does not possess Itself it looks to those persons who are the givers, and these in the first instance are the parents. It does not like to be less well off than its rivals. A girl, who compares her body with her brother's, often in phantasy expects that her father will 'make her a present' of that part of