ABSTRACT
Commentaries on the early psychoanalytic writings on the psychology of women through 1940 are annotated in this chapter. Jeanne Lampl-de Groot surveys psychoanalytic concepts of female development from the 1920s to 1977. In The Annual of Psychoanalysis, William Meissner reviews data on the Anna O case and the biography of Bertha Pappenheim to argue that a diagnosis of borderline psychopathology with hysterical features was most likely. Sarah Kofman's The Enigma of Woman—]—Woman in Freud’s Writings proposes some explanations and interpretations of what Freud meant at various times in his papers either about femininity or about the women with whom he worked. Peter Gay's Freud: A Life for Our Time is devoted to the cultural, political, and personal context surrounding Freud’s views on femininity. The term ‘dark continent’ was Freud’s reference to his own puzzlement and fragmentary knowledge about female sexuality and early feminine development.
