ABSTRACT
In the Anglo-Saxon countries there are those who argue that the concept of penis envy is a product of finde-siecle Vienna and those who dismiss all of psychoanalysis as a Victorian fossil. In France the debate tends to center on questions of sexuality, on acceptable beliefs about heterosexual and homosexual practices. Sigmund Freud held that "masculinity" and "femininity" are physical as well as psychological attributes. And when the notion of bisexuality is applied to mental life, both males and females are found to behave in masculine or feminine ways. Explanations of male and female sexuality, were to expand psychoanalytic theory as well and at the same time were to pave the way toward psychic liberation of both men and women. With few exceptions, the women analysts were the only ones to do empirical research with children, and several of them, including Helene Deutsch, Karen Horney, Edith Jacobson, and Melanie Klein, were exploring the formation of feminine identity.
