Editor's Introduction

THE FUNDAMENTAL AND UNIQUE CONTRIBUTIONS of psychoanalysis to knowledge about female psychology have provided the wellspring for contemporary understanding and have influenced a broad spectrum of relevant research. Psychoanalysis, in turn, has been stimulated and enriched by contributions from other disciplines. Recent years have seen extensive psychoanalytic exploration of feminine traits and tendencies, their definition, origins, and developmental transformations. Advances and innovations within psychoanalysis, as well as scholarly critiques from within and without psychoanalysis, have highlighted unresolved theoretical questions and have inspired challenge, controversy, and re-evaluation

Expanding knowledge and understanding have spurred efforts to clarify theoretical assumptions and formulations; to detect and correct inconsistencies, oversights, and errors; and to propose extensions and modifications of the initial developmental models. Contemporary contributions to female psychology have confirmed basic psychoanalytic discoveries while, as Freud anticipated, amplifying and amending earlier hypotheses and propositions. In any science there is an unavoidable lag in testing and integrating new ideas, and a still further lag in recognizing possible implications of these ideas. As we carefully reconsider our views of femininity, we must clearly differentiate revised views from earlier propositions and critically compare the two. The expansion of psychoanalytic theory is part of a circular process—assimilating and stimulating further analytic research.