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The formulations of female development by the earliest psychoanalysts were based on the initial theories and limited clinical experience of Freud and his disciples. Freud's views on female psychology echoed the Victorian bias against women. The Viennese society of Freud's time was phallocentric and patriarchal. The expansion of theories and research on development and the increased sophistication of psychoanalytic concepts led to the recasting and reconsideration of the earlier hypotheses. Controversy over the traditional views increased with the advent of women's liberation in the 1960s.
For Freud (1905), female psychology was veiled in what he called an “impenetrable obscurity.” He tried to understand female sexual life but it remained his “dark continent” (1926).
Freud constructed a theory of infantile sexuality that was based on a male model. His ideas about phallocentrism led to his hypothesis regarding the girl's sense of genital and penis envy. Freud believed that because a girl considers herself castrated, she lacks castration anxiety. Hence, she is unable to form a strong superego. The argument for the inferiority of women begins with the mistaken assumption that the penis is all-important and that the core of the superego is derived from the connection to the father (Freud, 1933).
In his developmental theory, Freud (1925) dealt with the issues of autonomy and individuation, issues that he believed to be of greater concern for boys because of their need to differentiate from the mother to achieve a masculine gender identity. Freud did not focus on empathy or relationships.