Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/14

 KARL ABRAHAM

The little girl's narcissism undergoes a severe test of endurance in the subsequent period. The hope that a penis will grow is just as little fulfilled as the phantasies of obtaining one by herself or as a gift Thus disappointed the child is likely to direct an intense and lasting hostility towards those from whom she has in vain expected the gift. Nevertheless, the phantasy of the child normally finds a way out of this situation. Freud has shown that besides 'motion* and 'penis' signifying 'gift' there is still a third idea which is identified with both of them, namely, the idea of 'child'. The infantile theories of procreation and birth adequately explain this connection.

The little girl now cherishes the hope of getting a child from her father — as a substitute for the penis not granted her, again as a 'gift'. The wish for a child can be fulfilled, although in the future and with the help of a later love object. The wish therefore signifies an approxknation to reality. The child by raising the father to the love object now enters into that stage of libido development which is characterised by the domination of the female Oedipus complex. At the same time maternal impulses develop through identification with the mother. The hoped-for possession of a child is therefore destined to compensate the woman for her physical defect.

We regard it as normal for the libido of a woman to be narcissistically bound to a greater extent than in a man, but it is not to be inferred from this that it does not experience far- reaching alterations right up to adult age.

The girl's original so-called 'penis envy' is at first replaced by envy of the mother's possession of children in virtue of the identification of her own ego with the mother. These hostile impulses need sublimation just as the libidinal tendencies directed towards the father. A latency period now sets in, as with boys, and when the age of puberty is reached the wishes which were directed to the first love object are re-awakened. The wish for the gift (child) has now to be detached from the idea of the father, and the libido thus freed has to find a new object. If this process of development is gone through in a favourable manner, the female libido is from now on attached to the idea of ex- pectancy in connection with the man. Its expression is regulated by certain inhibitions (feelings of shame). The normal adult woman becomes reconciled to her own sexual r6le and to that of the

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