ABSTRACT
My final chapter addresses how the psychoanalytic process can facilitate the male patient’s new and more positive experience of masculinity. I discuss how an experiential and ideological broadening of the sense of maleness and gender, both for patients and their analysts, often requires working beyond phallic ego ideals and defenses as well as becoming more receptive to prephallic, primordial vulnerabilities in order to provide greater access to the receptive, so-called feminine interior. I emphasize the particular impact of the analyst and discuss the importance of the male analyst’s incorporation of the feminine and gender fluidity. I close by summarizing the book’s central themes—including the idea that masculinity always remains tenuous—and by adding some concluding thoughts.
