ABSTRACT
The sinthome is obtained through a process of reduction based on the multiplicity of symptoms, and not through construction. The sinthome is rooted in maternal language. The sinthome is what enables the child to disengage itself from the law of the mother, by using a contingent element as a means of support. For S. Freud, the agency of separation from the mother was the Oedipal father. Since Freud's time, intergenerational transmission has been thought of in terms of the child's identification with the parents. From a Freudian point of view, it is difficult to speak of sexuality without reference to sexual difference, other than by treating girls like boys, as Freud did until 1925. Sexual difference, which since Freud's time has been measured using the yardstick of the phallus, now also needs to be considered in quite another way. Psychoanalysis has the means to think of sexual difference and sexual identity other than with reference to the phallus.
