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Int. 1. Psycho-A nal. (1994) 75, 469

THE FEMININE SELF AND PENIS ENVY

MARITA TORSTI, HELSINKI

This paper examines the integrative role of inner genitality in the formation of penis
intemalisations. which form part of the feminine self. Penis envy, operating simulta-
neously with the anxiety arising from a realisation of the introitus under the influence
of inner genitality, organises functioning inner and outer female penis structures. This
three-dimensionality of inner genitality, penis envy and anxiety for penetration is the
condition of a functioning femininity. In the light of an analytic case history, the
author follows the thawing out of a phallic defence position and the awakening of the
obstructed genitality. Phallicity is seen as a traumatic defence structure, which prevents
the development of functioning penis identifications. In the phallic mental world, the
penis takes on an idealised and concrete meaning. Its desirability is denied, and the
woman excludes her inner genitality from her relationship to it as an object. When
most obstructed in her womanhood, a woman becomes a phallus herself. She lives in
an imitative identity, in which the internalising psychic functions have come to a
standstill. In such a mind, the ultimate purpose of defence is to avoid annihilation
anxiety.

In the analysis of female patients, Freud (1925,
1931, 1933) found that the greatest resistance
to femininity comes from penis envy, which
he saw as constituting the most crucial factor
in the development of femininity. It is this that
the woman must relinquish in order to become
feminine. One is not born a woman but be-
comes one, and only as the result of a difficult
struggle. The girl does not possess a libido of
her own; her development during the early,
significant years takes place under the influence
of a masculine libido. Freud saw the clitoral
drive impulses as masculine; the little girl thus
resembles a boy.
In Freud's view, the girl's development pro-
gresses through the following stages: when she
first observes the differences between the sexes,
she becomes disappointed in her own genitals;
the clitoris is too small compared to the male
penis. She wants one for herself. This is the
origin of penis envy. At the age of 4, in her
disappointment, the girl gives up masturbating.
She becomes angry with the mother, up to
then the object of her love, because the mother
has not given her a penis; the girl now turns
to the father, in order to obtain one from him.
As a substitute for the unobtainable penis, she
later contents herself with wanting a baby from
the father. The girl does not relinquish this
relationship with the father; the oedipal conflict
is never totally resolved, and the girl therefore,
unlike the boy, never succeeds in establishing
an independent superego. Without a penis, she
remains dependent on male values and con-
ceptions of right and wrong. The significance
of penis envy is the central, and in fact the
only, factor in Freud's theory of femininity.
Again, according to Freud, women are maso-
chistic and narcissistic; the penis is overwhelm-
ingly powerful, and the woman accepts this
and submits to it. She thus remains in a vul-
nerable position; it is this vulnerability which
causes her narcissism. Freud assumed that, in
order to become a woman, she has to relin-
quish her penis envy and clitoral sexuality; in
other words, her fantasy of a penis of her
own. In his analytic practice, he encountered
powerful resistance to this abandoning of the
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470 MARITA TORSTI

penis. He thus came to the conclusion that by
the age of 30 women are rigid and incapable
of change (Freud, 1933, p. 134).
That is, the girl is not born a woman; she
becomes one by successfully giving up her
hopes for a penis and her clitoral sexuality.
This process involves a struggle. Freud's female
followers, his analysands Marie Bonaparte (1953),
Helene Deutsch (1945) and Jeanne Lampl de
Groot (1933), in their theories of femininity
stressed the masculinity complex and the mas-
culine significance of activity. They saw activity
as a sign of the girl's fixation on clitoral
masturbation, of unresolved penis envy.
All of these female followers of Freud ac-
cepted their teacher's notion that the girl's
feminine libido plays no part in her develop-
ment into womanhood. The vagina, claimed
Freud, becomes sensitive only at puberty; later,
however, he had to modify this view, saying
that even if the vagina has some sensitivity
before then, it plays no part in the girl's
development. 'Nevertheless the juxtaposition
"feminine libido" is without any justification'
(Freud, 1932, p. 132). 'The hidden vagina plays
no part' (Deutsch, 1925, p. 168).
In the theories of Deutsch, masochism be-
comes the cornerstone and origin of femininity:
'The girl wants to be castrated by her father'
(Freud, 1931, p. 199). After castration, the
girl's aggression is turned against herself; this
is the source of her masochism and passivity.
The woman's life reminds her of this: the blood
and pain of menstruation, the suffering caused
by labour pains. Castrated, the girl succeeds
in renouncing her clitoral activity, as Freud
demanded, and discovers her own, masochistic,
libido. Deutsch's woman becomes a woman in
giving herself to a man; it is the man and the
child who make her a woman (Deutsch, 1945).
According to Freud, the human being never
totally renounces any of his or her childhood
strivings, but retains them in one form or
another throughout life:
As always where the libido is concerned, man has
here again shown himself incapable of giving up a
satisfaction he had once enjoyed. He is not willing development. It is, however, precisely this early
to forgo the narcissistic perfection of his childhood sense of the genital body which guides the
... he seeks to recover it in a new form of an ego structuralisation of the feminine self. It is es-
ideal (Freud, 1914, p. 94).
Nevertheless, in Freud's view, the woman's
development was based totally on renuncia-
tion. Many analysts since Freud have en-
countered the same resistance in their female
analysands; the woman is not willing to give
up either her active goals or her penis fantasies.
Particularly when understood by the analyst
as purely masculine, it becomes difficult for
the woman to incorporate these penis strivings
into her femininity. Freud's female patients
expressed what we too find in our analysands'
unconscious: the woman retains her penis fan-
tasy. But how-and why? Is it part of her
femininity? How does the woman succeed in
internalising her penis fantasy?
To my knowledge, it was Edith Jacobson
(1937) who first described the girl's inner penis
fantasy as feminine. In earlier writing, this
illusion had been considered an indication of
a masculinity complex, from which the woman
had to be set free. Jacobson based the girl's
superego development on the inner image of
the father's penis, an image which the girl
lovingly guards and nurtures. The girl's love
is genital. Jacobson saw the importance of the
early vaginal experience to the woman's de-
velopment. The impetus in the girl's structu-
ralisation comes from her own libido, not from
its absence. Jacobson thus stresses the joint
effect of two factors as a moving force in
development: penis envy and genitality.
Likewise, Deutsch (1925) attempted to con-
ceptualise the feminine ego ideal in maternity.
She based her thinking on the idea of maso-
chistic satisfaction: childbirth was a masochis-
tic orgy and the mother--child relationship an
embodiment of feminine self-sacrifice. Deutsch
saw the mother's feelings of tenderness towards
the child as being derived from the image of the
father, which is incorporated during preg-
nancy. The foetus thus becomes identified with
the father. Deutsch's model of incorporation
did not make use of the woman's own libido;
she ended by seeing femininity as always
defined in terms of masochism.
Classic psychoanalytic theory denies the role
of the girl's vaginal sexuality in her feminine
pecially important in the formation of the
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THE FEMININE SELF AND PENIS ENVY
female body-image in the phase when the con-
ceptualisation of the clitoris and the introitus
is central. These processes are affected by penis
envy and by the fear of penetration; both of
these anxieties, however, are shaped and allevi-
ated by a third factor, the girl's inner genitality,
which by this time has been to a considerable
degree internalised in the mother-daughter
relationship (Kestenberg, 1982). This genitality
includes the maternal identification and the
girl's own feminine sexuality. It is this three-
dimensionality-the simultaneous interaction of
three divergent strivings-which gives rise to
the psychic space within which the mental,
conceptual, world arises out of taking pos-
session of one's physical impulses.
Concurrent with the time of most intense
penis envy, the girl is living through the oedipal
phase, in which oedipal impulses are directed
towards both parents simultaneously; the in-
tensity with which they are directed towards the
father is directly proportionate to the degree
to which the girl has succeeded in achieving
and maintaining inner-genital dominance in
her development so far (Torsti, 1993).
If the inner-genital integration phase (Kes-
tenberg, 1982) has been successful, the girl's
genital desire for a penis will be stronger than
her envy. It will influence the girl's future
development in her attempts to integrate her
fantasised clitoris-penis, her skills and abilities,
into a female competence. This female activity
is based on a clitoral body-image, on an organ
which belongs to the girl, and on her identi-
fication with the father in her negative oedipal
position. The integration itself is supported by
her sexuality and her early maternal-feminine
identity. Under these conditions, the concep-
tion of the masculinity complex in describing
female activity is a mistaken one, based on a
misunderstanding of femininity.
Kestenberg (1982) has described the process
of inner-genital integration in the girl's de-
velopment. She studied the significance of doll
play in the maternal relationship. In doll play,
the girl's inner-genital experiences are external-
ised. The baby girl experiences these sensations
from the moment of birth; the mother's care
'tames' them, so that they recede into the
background of both the oral and the anal stage
of development, but they survive throughout
471
the early dyadic relationship with the mother.
At this stage, the girl's vaginal impulses cannot
yet be discharged, as later, when the girl,
through masturbation, takes control of them
at the time when she is separating from the
mother. At this early stage they are symbolised
through doll play. This is the origin of the
girl's first illusion: the doll is her baby. She
creates a triadic relationship, shared with the
mother: mother-doll-girl. In her doll play, the
girl is identified with the mother's maternal
functions, and for this identification there is
an experienced bodily impetus.
Kestenberg observed and analysed girls; she
found that in their development between the
ages of 2\12 and 4 there was a phase of inte-
gration of these inner-genital contents. Accord-
ing to Kestenberg, only after this process of
integration can the stage of actual penis envy
begin. This is motivated by the girl's realisation
that she has an opening into the sensitive inner
space, which she attempts to fill and 'seal' by
means of the penis fantasy:
Yet, despite her efforts to represent her productive
inside, she does not achieve a sense of organ-
belonging as the boy does. In a way, her image of
herself remains an open system subject to shifts
and changes in keeping with requirements of future
changes in cycles and stages, such as pregnancy,
post-part urn- and lactation-periods ... In the phal-
lic-negative oedipal phase [the father] becomes an
organising object in his own right. The girl admires
him, identifies with him trying to outdo him in
his ability to provide in the phallic phase the
erect, large phallus becomes an object of true penis-
envy. As successor to the baby that filled the inside,
the girl's illusory penis-fashioned after the father's
penis-closes off access to the inside ... With the
realisation that the clitoris will not grow into a penis
or baby, the girl's illusory penis is shifted in fantasy
into the place in her inside where the baby was
(Kestenberg, 1982, p. 120).
Kestenberg continues:
From these lines stem the three basic feminine atti-
tudes, the tender-maternal, the efficient-competitive
and the enticing-sensuous. These attitudes alternate,
differentiate, combine and become integrated within
the total personality of the adult woman. On a higher
level, they are repeated in adolescence and incorpo-
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472 MARITA TORSTI
rated in adulthood into: (1) woman's fulfilment in
motherhood or equivalent creativity; (2) her compe-
tence to provide and cope with the world in or out-
side of her immediate home environment; and (3)
her fulfillment in a constant heterosexual relation-
ship (1982, p. 121).
So far, we have encountered Jacobson's
inner penis, the source and origin of the femi-
nine superego, a guardian of love; Kestenberg's
'sealing' penis, stemming from identification
with the father and the need to protect herself;
and, finally, Kestenberg's 'inside penis', the
girl's love for the father.
Chasseguet-Smirgel (1964) is concerned with
the difficulty of penis internalisation in femi-
nine conflicts. She speaks of the incorporation
of the penis. The girl incorporates the penis
in the change from mother-love to father-love;
this process of incorporation, however, may
be hampered by the idealisation of the penis,
which, according to Chasseguet-Smirgel, al-
ways accompanies a change of object. Such
idealisation is a necessary condition for the
girl's object change, since the ties to the mother
are so powerful that only a split in which the
father is idealised makes it possible for the girl
to abandon the mother. The girl encounters dif-
ficulties in attempting to internalise the ideal-
ised penis. The process of incorporation also
involves, in addition to desire, certain castrat-
ing and anal impulses towards the penis.
Women therefore describe symptoms which
express their feelings of guilt. In their guilt
fantasies, they identify with the drowning, suf-
focating or smashed image of the penis within
their own castrating inside. Under these con-
ditions, they are prevented from utilising their
own competence and ability.
Chasseguet-Smirgel describes penis envy
thus:
I see penis envy not as a 'virility claim' to something
one wants for its own sake, but as a revolt against the
person who caused the narcissistic wound: the omni-
potent mother (1964, p. 115).
Furthermore:
If, however, penis envy is caused by the desire to
liberate oneselffrom the mother, as I propose, the
sequence of events is somewhat different: the girl will
simultaneously be envious of the penis and turn to
her father, powerfully aided by a basic feminine
wish to free herself from the mother (1964, p. 117).
Chasseguet-Smirgel defines two different
kinds of penis envy: that motivated by the
girl's narcissistic wound, and that arising from
her simultaneous desire both to incorporate it
and to separate herself from the mother. In
addition, she also describes a third penis-related
need: as a block against penetration, since
penetration threatens the integrity of some
women. In such cases, according to Chasseguet-
Smirgel, the girl's defence is motivated by fear
of the maternal phallus; this fear is anal.
Chasseguet-Smirgel does not see the develop-
ment of femininity as built upon the genital
libido:
I believe that the fact that there may be primary
receptive instincts in women, be they oral, anal or
vaginal, does not prevent penis envy from being pri-
mary, too (1964, p. 112).
In relation to the instinctual origin of the
motivation for penis incorporation, she denies
the importance of vaginal sexuality:
Also, the instinctual drive at the level of the primary
process is absolute and unlimited and cannot be set
in a spatio-temporal framework (1964, p. 216).
Chasseguet-Smirgel is certainly right in her
point that all of the above are primary recep-
tive instinctual impulses; but not in her claim
that the vagina does not play the most impor-
tant role and is not the first actual significant
instinctual element in the integration of femi-
ninity. There are two reasons for this signifi-
cance; firstly, because it persists throughout
the whole developmental cycle, thus providing
the significance of continuity (Kestenberg,
1982, p. 92); secondly, because its symbolisation
begins very early: it is externalised in the doll
relationship already in the second year of life.
It thus creates the basis for an early psychic
feminine function; seemingly, for part of the
capacity for integration which is preserved
throughout life, and by means of which sub-
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THE FEMININE SELF AND PENIS ENVY 473

sequently penis envy, the feminine body- image envy. She creates protective functions to guard
and all the functions of femininity are inter- her integrity, and these functions have in part
nalised. It probably plays a role in the process the character of penis identification. She creates
of integration itself, naturally in promoting the 'sealing penis' (Kestenberg, 1982); those
feminine identifications, and in bringing about mental functions which I call penis-femininity.
penis internalisations. The girl can have the same skills and abili-
When inner genitality is excluded, the pro- ties as the boy. She even competes with boys
cess of integration and feminine identification in their own world, without becoming bitter
is hampered. Such inhibition of inner genitality at not being able to win over them. In her
occurs when the girl very early experiences sublimations, the woman can identify with the
severe disappointments in the relationship with sexual functions of the father's penis as the
her mother (Torsti, 1993). By inner genitality possessor of the mother; she becomes a pen-
I mean both vaginal sensations and the mental etrator, perhaps as a scientist or scholar; a
functions which already at that time are con- fertiliser, for instance, with her ideas; she takes
structed upon them. Sexual feelings must not possession of her audience, perhaps as a singer.
become dominant; the mother's good care keeps These sublimations become possible for her
them at an available level and promotes their only when her femininity is adequately function-
continuity and their externalisation in the girl's ing in her possession; they bind the woman's
play. negative oedipal cathexes. But this binding
As Kestenberg puts it: cannot take place when the girl's differentiation
from the mother is incomplete and her inner
In this process, libido is shifted from the genitals genitality has not been internalised. In such
and the inner-genital tensions become degenital- cases, the areas of penis envy in the woman
ized, paving the way for undisturbed differentiation are characterised by despair, unlike the sealing-
of phase specific ego functions (1982, p. 92). penis image already described, which is char-
acterised by autonomous sexual desire, the
It is astounding that the significance of the woman's clitoral sexuality. Contrary to Freud's
vagina has been ignored by theorists in out- assumption, the woman does not give this up,
lining the development of femininity in classic but builds part of her self and her body image
psychoanalytic theory. How is it possible for upon it.
human beings to possess an organ which be- Part of the woman is always hostile to the
comes sensitised only at puberty? And why man; after all, she has envied him, and this
should that organ be the vagina in particular? envy is not entirely lost. It is this envy which
The question I am concerned with is the permits her to compete in a men's world. It
way in which the penis, as an object of envy, should be noted that the clitoris is a female
becomes integrated into femininity. Like Lach- sex organ; its stimulation is normally linked
man (1982), I consider that a well-functioning with vaginal sensations, so that when the girl
penis envy is an important aspect of femininity, masturbates her sexual sensation spreads into the
organising and integrating it. These functions vagina. The psychic domains of self and body-
it can fulfil only when the penis is most deeply image built upon both sexual feelings originate
internalised. To the extent that this binding in feminine experience.
does not occur, the girl's penis envy will
hamper or paralyse the development of femi-
nine autonomy. CASE REPORT
One of the essential functions of femininity
is to ensure a capacity for critical selectiveness I have chosen this case from among those
towards those men who strive to enter her. that were available because I do not think the
The woman's receptivity must not be overly patient can be identified in Finland. The pro-
passive; an awareness of the introitus requires cess I will describe could have been illustrated
psychic work on the part of the girl at a stage by many other analyses.
coinciding precisely with the first wave of penis My case report is a woman, A, who started
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474 MARITA TORSTI
analysis, four times a week, at the age of 26.
Three years earlier she had begun therapy with
a male therapist, as a result of her inability
to have sexual intercourse with her permanent
partner; their previous sexual relations had
been satisfactory, and my patient considered
the relationship a good one. In her therapy
she had been completely silent for more than
a year, and the therapist therefore suggested
that she try an analysis with me. In the initial
interview she seemed co-operative.
The first stage in her relationship with me
rapidly became one of defiant and provocative
acting out. She began seeing a new man, spend-
ing nights with him; her main intention was
to seduce him, in order to shock both her
permanent partner and the analyst. In the
analytic sessions, she provided just enough
information to keep me up to date with this
situation; she did not say much about anything
else. I began to explore this attitude, and
realised that she brought up her father trans-
ference. I learned that, during adolescence, A's
relationship with her father had become so
inflamed that she had had to leave home and
move in with relatives. A defied her father and
refused to submit. The father did not tolerate
her nights out and her men friends. A began
sexual relations at an early age; to the shock
of her father, she entered into a relationship
with a partner almost the father's age.
She had nightmares in which an unknown
man was chasing her with a knife or a gun in
his hand; she would jump into a large pit to
escape. In the transference, A swallowed her
associations and hid behind her silence. She
used something which her dream could sym-
bolise in an action; in an acting-in mode
with me. She gave me only a part of her
thoughts; the part in which the transference-
father was provoked to attack. She refused to
accept either the curfew rules laid down by
her father, or the analytic rule of talking about
everything.
The next stage in the analysis was one in
which A was silent, coolly sadistic and cynical.
She let me have intermittent and isolated items
of information: at work she could not stand
the presence of others; she was unable to eat.
Travelling to and from work was painful; in
the bus she was invaded by panic and had to
get off and walk; her work was piling up. She
had lost her energy and her initiative long
ago, in school at the age of II or 12. At that
age there had been a sudden change. She had
previously been a good and interested student,
but abruptly everything had come to an end.
The teachers had been puzzled, and evidently
there had been talk of treatment. A little later
there was an anorectic stage. She was still thin
at the time of the analysis; she was also suf-
fering from attacks of stomach pain, and gas-
tritis had been diagnosed. She was forced to
stay away from work for a few days at a time
owing to recurrent attacks of diarrhoea. She
had been taking tranquillisers for many years,
but with the help of analysis weaned herself
from them.
During the sessions, in her silence she used
to play the piano in her mind. She had origi-
nally gone quite far in her piano studies, but
was unable to perform in public. Now she
'played' during the therapy sessions, in order
to resist her wish to share her associations
with me. This could be interpreted; behind it
was the connection with the mother, who had
been A's first piano teacher in her childhood.
Through music, the mother had always been
available, bypassing the father and the younger
brothers. The piano was something to which
the mother always reacted. 'Playing' during the
analytic sessions, A's fingers moved rapidly
across her stomach; the link with masturbation
was embarrassingly obvious. She recalled,
laughing, how she had desired her brothers'
instruments; they had played woodwind instru-
ments. Her childhood penis envy, however,
had not subdued her; as a child she was quick
to learn, and coped well. Feelings of envy and
jealousy towards the brothers were available
in the analysis; as was, to some extent at this
stage, her envy of the mother on account of
her maternal skills and because she had sons.
A saw a link between the mother's pregnancy
and her own anorexia, with the related preg-
nancy fantasies. She had vivid memories from
the age of 5, when her younger brother had
been born.
The transference was a positive one, in spite
of the cynicism with which she defended herself
against her own warmth, to the point where
she became ill. At this time, however, she could
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THE FEMININE SELF AND PENIS ENVY
not imagine talking to me about her sex life.The
next stage in the analysis began with a dream,
in which some horses escaped from a fenced
enclosure with an enormous pounding. At the
foot of the couch there is a Chinese drawing of
a runaway horse being subdued by its master.
A was now teetering on the verge of a depres-
sion; for days she would fall into it and then
rise out of it once more. Her mind was full
of suicidal images, dreams in which she was
drowning in black and icy water, and images
of warm water in which to drown herself. Re-
fusing her partner's approaches came up in
the discussion. Suddenly she found herself flirt-
ing with other men; but she knew she loved
her own partner, although she was unable to
feel it. She tended to blush easily, even in the
analytic sessions.
While I was interpreting this resistance to
her in the transference, a sudden memory of
her father broke into her mind: the father's
penis, it's hard and it's tickling her in bed.
Her mother is away from home, and her father
is holding her close against him ... not pene-
trating her. Father and her in a dark room,
father shining a flashlight on her small budding
breasts and vulva; is there any hair yet ... Her
mother is away. She was 11. A terrible shame
overwhelms her at these memories. I now find
it easy to understand how shamefully she has
felt her wish to show me her associations, and
how impossible it has been for her to take in
and use my interpretations, let alone keep them
within herself.
The impression of the usefulness of the
analysis, its integration, has been very loose;
very little is genuinely internalised. On the
contrary: when the session has been going well,
A has always destroyed it with her cold and
cynical silence the next time. Nothing has been
allowed to arouse permanent interest in her.
She has been extremely passive, at the same
time provoking activity in others; unprotected,
and at the same time extremely reserved and
withdrawn in her self-defence. When we were
analysing these resistances in the analytic re-
lationship, another memory emerged: when A
was 15, her father had threatened to kill her
with a knife. He had held her tightly against
the wall, knife pointed at her, for what seemed
an eternity; the reason was her late return
475
home. Finally, he had put down his knife, while
A kept her eyes turned away.
A felt that with this icy gesture she had
gained victory over the father. This turned-
away, icy A carried the secret together with
her father. She had never spoken of these
events to anyone; they were a tie between
herself and her father-in them, he belonged
to her. Furthermore, this turning away was
A's knife, even more powerful than the father's
idealised strength and power, for bad more
than for good. This phallic knife of A's own
was her defiance, her cynicism and her refusal
to commit herself to anyone.
A was afraid of orgasm, because she was
often caught up in it, in a state of unwilling
confusion, for many hours. It gave her the
connection with the moment of the knife,
shared with her father. She could have fainted.
The orgasm was death by the father's knife.
After this interpretation, she began to keep
within herself and allow the fruit of our collabo-
ration to grow; she took control of her own
activity and initiative. I heard of her progress
at work; she had been given a rise and was
offered a promotion, to a position in which
she would have subordinates under her. She
was able to cope with this new situation. She
also became engaged and began to plan mar-
riage, but she was frightened of wanting a
child; she might be a harsh mother. Memories
arose once more of her own mother with her
little brothers (one-and-a-half and five years
younger, respectively).
She remembered the mother's last pregnancy
quite well, as well as her own bitter envy of
the mother's ability to give birth and to breast-
feed the child. She wanted to hurt her mother's
sons, and she did so: she pushed the peram-
bulator down the hill so that it turned over.
She had dolls, but they did not feel sufficient
to her; her mother had a real baby. The time
of the birth of the first brother recurs through-
out the analysis as a desolate sense of exclu-
sion; it also appears in her way of excluding
me, and generally in the effort she invests in
exclusion. This now takes a new form: the
urge to bring about a miscarriage in the mother
(as she had so often done to my fertilising
interpretations within herself).
A's voice had until now been brittle and
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(see terms.pep-web.org).
476 MARITA TORSTI
thin; it now deepened and became warmer.
She joined a choir group and began to sing.
Her mother is a singer, an alto, and A has
always been in love with the mother's songs
and voice. A now revealed that it has been
difficult for her to take in my words because
my voice resembles that of the mother, and
she has been bewitched by it. A terminated
the analysis, thawed and warmed from within,
and ready to establish a family of her own,
as her mother had before her. She sees many
similarities between herself and her mother,
and is now pleased with them.
We succeeded in breaking through the hard
phallic walls of her defence, to A's traumatic
experiences with her father. Consenting to
remember the magical-omnipotent alliance with
the satanic aspect of the father, and to become
free of it, released A to remember the oedipal
mother. The mother lived with the father, and
A was able to recall the parents' love life and
the way in which the children were excluded
from it. The father's penis, held with love
within the mother, began to take on signifi-
cance, and A's own inner self began to warm up.
She was willing to see me, too, as the mother
of a family, as someone who had given birth
to children. She began to want something
within herself to give growth and life to; first
she consented to the nurturing of our joint
analytic child, began to revive and make pro-
gress, gradually coming to want a child of her
own.
With this warming-up process, my penis,
initially the murderingly-penetrating idealised
phallus of the rampant father, took on a
meaning of pleasurable penetration; at first a
male penis, but also the mother's penis, and
its frightening homosexual penetration. During
this process, A herself had adopted many penis
characteristics, involving the use of skills and
abilities, creativity, leadership and performing
skills. These were not something new to her;
but she had renounced them at the time of
the father's exploitation of her in his own
problems, when A was II.
A's trauma was worked through in the
transference, and her phallic narcissistic resis-
tance was explored. In this process, the inner-
genital potential for integration was mobilised.
We can follow the three-dimensional integra-
tion in this analysis: the genitality which had
been obstructed came alive at the moment
when the lost sealing function of A's penis-
femininity could once again be taken into
possession, when we had succeeded in working
through in the transference both of A's trau-
mas: her early outsideness when her brother
was born, and the traumatic relationship with
her father. Her newborn inner liveliness was
given a symbolic representation as a pulsating
orange ball in one of her dreams during the
termination.
IMITATIVE IDENTITY
At its most painful, penis envy originates
from too early a traumatic disappointment
with the mother, with which the mind of the
young child is unable to deal. An early sense
of exclusion from the mother, as postulated
by Green (1983) and Gaddini (1974, 1976),
returns retrospectively to the primal scene process.
This disappointment with the mother means
for the child a loss of the mother's care, and
a sense of exclusion which at this age it is
totally unequipped to sustain. In this condition,
the child experiences the catastrophe of loss
of self. It has to defend itself against a possible
repetition of this catastrophe. Afterwards, the
child's second object, the father, becomes the
cause of this outsideness in the child's fantasies
once more in returning to the primal-scene
process.
The father takes up that space within the
mother which the child considers to belong to
itself. The result is that the father's penis does
not at the appropriate time take on a desirable
meaning for the girl, but rather becomes a
threat. Instead of turning her desire towards
it she has to protect herself from it. Under
these conditions, the woman herself attempts
to become the envied and idealised phallus
and to collect all the admiration she thinks
belongs to it for herself. She constructs an
imitative relationship with the idealised penis,
which I call the phallus: she herself becomes
her own aggressor, that which she cannot
desire. She creates a magically omnipotent and
unrealistic self, based on the delusion of imi-
tation. In this imitative identity there is nothing
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THE FEMININE SELF AND PENIS ENVY
to reach for or to desire, because every lack
reminds her of losing the self.
Gaddini (1969) describes imitation as a pri-
mary state in the child's development, the
starting point in the development of the self:
the child withdraws from the outside world in
order to restore its state of equilibrium-after
which it can once more tolerate its needs with
regard to the satisfying object:
we must bear in mind that physical contact is the
method of choice for achieving imitative identity,
whose aim is withdrawalfrom the conflicts and anxi-
ety associated with the object area. It may be added
that imitative identity originally relates to the bodily
self and that it is the product of primitive libidinal
cathexes-that is, ones turned towards the interior
of the self (Gaddini, 1974, p. 81).
For the patient using imitative identity when
filled with painful envy, the analytic situation
can contain only one idealised phallus at a
time; the analysand herself strives to maintain
this position. The analyst suddenly finds him-
self in a situation in which his work has no
meaning. He is present in order to be absent-
in order to be outside. The analysand may
seem to be co-operating beautifully-but noth-
ing happens. The analysand should be admired
if she suddenly loses her admirability to the
analyst; she becomes empty and insignificant.
She cannot allow her innermost being to live
and experience warmth or hope and desire;
this would make her vulnerable to the anxiety
and dependency which has a meaning of ca-
tastrophe for her. The process of intemalisa-
tion becomes impossible.
The defence mechanisms which dominate
the analytic situation in such cases are acting in,
somatisation, concretisation and denial. Pro-
gress is prevented by integration anxiety. As
one of my analysands has expressed it: she
feels as though two magnets with the same
pole were revolving around each other. Or, in
the words of Gaddini:
it should be borne in mind that the imitative identity
is opposed to the structuringprocesses of adult iden-
tity not as some defence mechanism or other but as
a fundamental alternative which can, by means of
imitations, assume the guise of many important as-
477
pects of the adult relationship with reality, and ap-
pear as adult identity (1974, p. 81).
In the place of desire and hope, what I
found in this phallic mental world is excitation
and the sado-masochistic delusion, magically
representing lack of differentiation, of merging
with the analyst. The emotional element in this
phallus is one of pain.
It would seem that the greater the threat
of loss of self, the more omnipotent are the
means of phallic defence in the feminine struc-
tures. At the level of fantasy, the phallus is
concretised: it is precious or beautiful, and it
is always an instrument of power and strength.
It is always also a weapon or a lethal poison;
it has a parallel meaning of death.
In order to prevent the catastrophe of loss
of self, the woman tends to use her magical
and omnipotent phallic identity. By this means
she protects herself against every meaning of
loss during the developmental cycle: equally
from differentiation, from gender differences,
and from oedipal outsideness. Such psychic
structuralisation blocks the development of
healthy penis intemalisations and female ego
ideals (Torsti, 1993).
TRANS LA nONS OF SUMMARY
Cet article examine Ie role integratif de la genitalite in-
terne dans la formation des internalisations du penis, qui font
partie du soi feminin. L'envie du penis, operant de facon
simultanee avec l'angoisse surgissant d'une realisation de
l'introidus sous l'influence de la genitalite interne. organise
les structures fonctionnelles du penis interne et externe
ferninin. Cette dimension tripartite, la genitalite interne,
l'envie du penis et l'angoisse de la penetration. est la condi-
tion d'une ferninite operante.
Ala lumiere d'un cas c\inique analytique, l'auteur suit la
detente dune position de defense phalli que et Ie reveil d'une
genitalite bloquee.
La phallicite est comprise comme une structure de defense
traumatique qui empeche Ie developpement du fonctionne-
ment des identifications de penis. Dans Ie monde mental
phallique, Ie penis revet un sens idealise et concret. Sa desir-
abilite est niee et la femme exc\ue sa genitalite interne de sa
relation it lui en tant qu'objet.
Quand une femme est des plus bloquee quant it sa nature
de femme, elle devient elle meme un phallus. Elle vit dans une
identite imitative dans laquelle les fonctions psychiques inter-
nalisantes en sont au point mort. Dans un tel esprit, Ie but
ultime des defenses est d'eviter l'angoisse d'annihilation,
Dieser Beitrag untersucht die integrative Rolle der in-
neren Genitalitat in der Formierung der Penisverinner-
Copyrighted Material. For use only by FieldingGraduateU. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions
(see terms.pep-web.org).
478 MARITA TORSTI
Iichungen. die Teil des femininen Selbst sind. Penisneid, der
simultan mit der sich aus der Realisierung des Introitus unter
dem Einfluf innerer Genitalitat ergebenden Angst fungiert,
organisiert funktionierende innere und aufere weiblichePenis-
strukturen. Diese Dreidimensionalitat von innerer Genitalitat,
Penisneid und Penetrationsangst ist der Zustand einer funk-
tionierenden Femininitat. 1m Lichte einer analytischen Fall-
geschichte folgt der Autor dem Auftauen der phallischen
Verteidigungsposition und dem Erwachen der gehemmten
Genitalitat. Phallizitatwird als traumatische Verteidigungsstruk-
tur betrachtet, die die Entwicklung funktionierender Penisi-
dentifizierungen und konkreter Bedeutungen verhindert. Es
wird abgestritten, daf sie wiinschenswert ist und die Frau
schlieBtihre innere Genitalitat aus ihrer Beziehung dazu als
Objekt aus. Eine Frau wird selbst zum Phallus, wenn sie in
ihrer Fraulichkeit am meisten gehemmt ist. Sie lebt in einer
imitativen Identitat, in welcher die internalisierenden psy-
chischen Funktionen zum Stillstand gekommen sind. In soleh
einem Geiste ist der letztendliche Verteidigungszweck die
Vermeidung der Vernichtungsangst.
Este articulo examina el papel integrador de la geni-
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Copyright © Institute of Psycho-Analysis, London, 1994
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