ABSTRACT
This clinical piece by Abraham is the second part of his 1924 study, ‘A Short Study of the Development of the Libido’, which focuses on the psychosexual pathology of the narcissistic neuroses. While the first part is confined to the theory of the pregenital levels of the libido, the second part traces the development of the relation of individuals to their love objects.
Though it may appear that the detailed clinical observations related here are sometimes beside the point of femininity, they do however give a clear picture of the various manifestations of the castration complex. This actually leads Abraham to trace the genesis of penis envy to an oral fixation, a point Stärcke, in the paper included in this collection, had developed on the basis of an earlier piece by Abraham. Moreover, Abraham’s observations on identification anticipate Freud’s distinction between primary and secondary identification. In point of fact, if there is one article which is central to the controversy on female sexuality, this is the one: since all contributors either quote it or discuss it, and do so not only because of the frequently cited table surveying psychosexual development which is discussed in the conclusion.
