ABSTRACT
For Sigmund Freud, the upheaval entailed by the discovery of the difference between the sexes is a trauma that mobilizes, in boys and in girls, a significant amount of cathected and counter-cathected energy. Anxiety concerning object loss is obviously common to children of both sexes. Freud described what he called the castration complex in girls as a structural operator of the Oedipus complex that organizes, in both sexes, the difference between the sexes and between generations. From the outset, then, the feminine dimension bears the mark of a narcissistic "wound", prejudice and feelings of inferiority. The maternal feminine aspect of the analyst is often mentioned as being necessary for "containing", in Bion's sense of the word, the patient's fantasy productions. Bisexuality appears to pose more of a problem to men, given the equivalence between "female" and "castrated".
