Further explorations into the complexities of femininity and masculinity.

Abstract

This text explores Dana Birksted-Breen's notions of penis-as-link and negative and positive femininity, rooted in primitive mental and bodily states, in a dialogue between the manifestations of the biological body and their interpretation by the psyche in the construction of a sexed bodily mind. When the capacities for introjection have been impaired from an early stage, there is a great difficulty in representing and relating to a receptive internal space, hence to one's femininity, be it for a girl or a boy. This capacity for introjection in its relation to femininity plays a great part in the analytic capacity to display one's bodily receiver instrument as a sounding board for the analysand's unconscious. Instead of countertransference, one might think in terms of protransference.