ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud managed to create a new anthropology where man is rooted in nature and in the drives or instincts, but where sexuality is also understood as developing in relationships, which shape them and which, in turn, shape the personality. There is obviously an implied critique of ego psychology, and perhaps also of the attachment-developmentalist approach, with its stress on mentalization and the cognitive aspect of development and psychoanalytic work. It appears to be widely accepted in psychoanalysis that there is some kind of primary need for relationships, which some claim to be a constitutional predisposition, described variously as, for example, primary love, object seeking, or ego relatedness. From an anthropological perspective it is, in this context, interesting to discuss the new developments in gender theory aimed at understanding the quite different appearance of sexuality and gender in Western cultures.
