Female Sexuality: The Early Psychoanalytic Controversies

The papers collected together in this volume laid the groundwork for contemporary psychoanalytic women’s studies and gender theory. They cover a period from June 1917, when Johan van Ophuijsen presented his paper on the masculinity complex in women to the Dutch Psycho-Analytical Society, to April 1935, when Ernest Jones read a paper on early female sexuality to the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society.

Although these papers are often referred to in discussions of female sexuality, and although some individual papers have been reproduced elsewhere, they have never before appeared together as a collection. Anyone who has read these papers will be aware of their importance to the topic of female sexuality. But it is not the theme alone that unifies the collection. There are two further considerations of equal importance: the dialogue and debate that take place between the papers, from first to last; and the considerable impact they had on the development of certain of Freud’s key themes. The papers have a clear historical interest but rereading them today will also show their continuing relevance to debates within and outside psychoanalysis on female sexuality.

This collection contains papers by Karl Abraham, Marie Bonaparte, Ruth Mack Brunswick, Helene Deutsch, Otto Fenichel, Karen Horney, Ernest Jones, Melanie Klein, Jeanne Lampl de Groot, Josine Müller, Carl Müller-Braunschweig, Johan H. W. van Ophuijsen, Joan Riviere, and August Stärcke.