Aspects of core gender identity

Fast, Irene

doi:10.1080/10481889909539349

Cited by 40 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Through successful negotiation of these fantasies, facilitated by parents’ empathy and boundary setting, children will emerge from the Oedipal phase relinquishing those infantile incestuous desires, firming their own heterosexual identities as they forestall gratification and await an opposite sex partner of their own when they reach adulthood 7. Within that process they will establish a firm gender identity with a new understanding that one is and always will remain the sex listed on one’s birth certificate or assigned early in life (for intersex children) 8. Throughout middle childhood youth will continue to internalize the gender norms of their culture, and learn to conform to them.…”

Section: Reformulate Theories Of Gender Development In Light Of Gendementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender nonconforming youth: current perspectives

Ehrensaft¹

2017

AHMT

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Beginning with a case vignette, a discussion follows of the reformulation of theories of gender development taking into consideration the recent upsurge of gender nonconforming and transgender youth presenting for gender services and also in the culture at large. The three predominant models of pediatric gender care are reviewed and critiqued, along with a presentation of the recently developed interdisciplinary model of gender care optimal in the treatment of gender nonconforming youth seeking either puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

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Section: Reformulate Theories Of Gender Development In Light Of Gendementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender nonconforming youth: current perspectives

Ehrensaft¹

2017

AHMT

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“…In being recognized as primary attachment objects themselves, fathers have been increasingly appreciated as significant, real, and embodied caregivers who play a uniquely important role in their children's intrapsychic lives throughout preoedipal, oedipal, and postoedipal development (e.g., Benjamin, , ; Campbell ; Cath ; Diamond , ; Fast , ; Herzog , ; Pruett , ; Ross ; Spieler ). Accordingly, analytic thinkers carried forward Freud's () presaged remarks on the preoedipal actual father with whom the little boy seeks to identify by examining the involved father's impact on the child's psychic reality.…”

Section: Three Waves In Theorizing the Father In Psychoanalysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovering the Father in Mind and Flesh: History, Triadic Functioning, and Developmental Implications

Diamond¹

2017

The Psychoanalytic Quarterly

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This paper aims to restore the father and paternal function to their rightful place alongside the mother and maternity in order to counter the prevailing matricentric, dyadic bias in psychoanalytic theory and technique. The author contends that both the symbolic and the actual, flesh-and-blood father are necessary to optimize his child's development. The paternal function inevitably operates in a triadic matrix; thirdness is always psychically in existence-with the father ever present in the mother's unconscious mind-and the paternal third is necessary to open up symbolic space. As an embodied other, the actual father, both as a separating agent and an attracting object, is called upon to recognize his child's otherness throughout the inescapable father-child rivalries, neglect, and desire.

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“…Greenson's brief paper is quoted often and, in fact, his trenchant formulation has been taken as a developmental norm. Nonetheless, except for Fast's (1984Fast's ( , 1990Fast's ( , 1999 incisive commentaries, Greenson's and Stoller's claims have received little critical commentary in the mainstream psychoanalytic literature.…”

Section: Does a Boy's Moving Away From His Mother Constitute Disidentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper reconceptualizes the nature of the internalization processes involved in the shaping of a boy's gender identity as it is founded on his unique struggles in separating from his mother. As Fast (1999) notes, current psychoanalytic conceptions of men's gender development rely on a normative model initially espoused by Greenson (1968) and Stoller (1964Stoller ( , 1965Stoller ( , 1968. This model argues that, in infancy, boys develop in a feminine direction as a result of their 'primitive, symbiotic identi cation with a mothering person' (Greenson, 1968, p. 372) and thus, by age 2, boys have established a primary femininity.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Many contemporary analysts consider theoretically and clinically problematic the forceful splitting propounded by Greenson (1968) termed 'disidenti cation from the mother' and 'counter-identi cation with the father' (for example, Fast, 1984Fast, , 1990Fast, , 1995Fast, , 1999Fast, , 2001Benjamin, 1988Benjamin, , 1991Benjamin, , 1996Pollack, 1995Pollack, , 1998Christiansen, 1996;Axelrod, 1997;Diamond, 1998Diamond, , 2001Diamond, , 2004Wilkinson, 2001). Building on Fast's seminal work (1984,1990,1999), I wish to add to this dialogue by highlighting the complex pre-oedipal and oedipal internalizations that help each boy create his unique sense of maleness while considering two key issues that those employing Greenson's pre-oedipal theory failed to take adequately into account: rst, the desirability and unavoidability of the boy's earliest, pre-oedipal identi cations with both parents; and second, the unconscious, intrapsychic foundation for such internalization, especially as the boy's identi cation with his mother re ects the recovery of lost or disrupted aspects of a gratifying object relationship.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The shaping of masculinity: Revisioning boys turning away from their mothers to construct male gender identity

Diamond¹

2004

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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This paper offers an understanding of the nature of the internalization processes involved in the shaping of male gender identity founded on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother. The underpinning for the initial development of a sense of masculinity is reconsidered as the author questions the widely held idea of Greenson and Stoller that a boy normatively has to ‘dis‐identify’ from his mother to create his gender identity. Import rather is placed on the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mother's (and father's) pre‐oedipal and oedipal relationship with their little boy in order better to understand the nature of the boy's unique identifications and subsequent sense of masculinity. Both the security of the boy's attachment to his mother, in providing the foundation for a transitional turning to an ‘other’, and the mother's capacity to reflect upon and recognize her own, as well as the father's and her son's, subjectivity and maleness, are crucial in comprehending boys' ‘attachment‐individuation’ process. Likewise, the unconscious paternal and maternal imagos and identifications of both the boy's mother and father, as well as the father's pre‐oedipal relationship with his little boy and the boy's mother, are extremely significant in shaping a son's gender identity. The author argues that these early maternal (and paternal) identifications live on in every male and continue to impact the sense of maleness in a dialectical interplay throughout the life span. A maturing gender identity develops from integrating these early, pre‐oedipal maternal identifications that no longer need be repudiated nor defensively organized as polarized gender splitting.

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Aspects of core gender identity

Cited by 40 publications

References 12 publications

Gender nonconforming youth: current perspectives

Gender nonconforming youth: current perspectives

Recovering the Father in Mind and Flesh: History, Triadic Functioning, and Developmental Implications

The shaping of masculinity: Revisioning boys turning away from their mothers to construct male gender identity

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