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IN HIS OPENING COMMENTS, Robert Stoller reminded us that the psychoanalytic interest and exploration of male and female sexual development was one of Freud's earliest interests and is a worthy subject for current research. Stoller introduced the panel topic by defining several terms in current use; sex was defined as the biological and physiological basis for male and female bodily development; gender, previously synonymous with sex, has taken on the meaning of degrees of masculinity and femininity.
Until recently, our knowledge was restricted to the understanding of sexual development. But in the past twenty years a change has occurred; data from analysis, biology, infant observation, and family studies provided exciting new information. There has been increasing focus on issues of perinatal, preoedipal, and dyadic development; bonding; prelanguage cognition; early fusion-merging with the object and its resolution in the separation-individuation phase. This excites hope and enthusiasm for a new scientific methodology for psychoanalysis. It also implies less dependence on transference material from adult analysis, as rich and valuable as that may be. These new methodologies allow for scientific rigor as well as discourse with other disciplines. But