ABSTRACT
This chapter unfolds a developmental narrative that centers on bodily-based narcissistic injury and sense of shame in response to unrequited oedipal longings. Through a subjective sense of oedipal defeat in relation to both mother and father, a female sense of inadequacy and shame may be internalized and accepted as one’s identity, in contrast to a male phallic-omnipotent trajectory. The demise of genital narcissism in females can underlie various expressions of pervasive inhibition and failure to actualize desire. Girls may inhibit sexuality and aggression, and themselves more generally, due to a representation of self as “not having what it takes” genitally, and then bodily and psychically. Mental representations of the self, based on positive imagery of the female body, are needed to give voice to a woman’s bodily experience, sexual desire and agency in various realms. Two clinical vignettes illustrate female inhibitions in sexuality and in professional ambition as understood within the framework presented.
