ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis has as yet no comprehensive theory of core gender and sexual identity (in the sense in which Stoller (1968) defines these terms). As a psychic construction, gender and sexual identity have both biological and acquired origins and are thus at the research crossroads of several scientific disciplines. Nevertheless psychoanalysis has a specific contribution to make to the study of aberrations in core gender identity and in the established sense of one’s sexual role, in so far as these have their roots in the experiences of early childhood and the unconscious problems of parents.
