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In this paper I wish to consider one aspect of a girl's relationship to her father in the phallic-narcissistic phase of psychosexual development. I will suggest that, under normal conditions within the normal developmental process, the father fulfils a special function in helping to promote his preoedipal daughter's sexual and gender identity—a process that, in turn, facilitates her entry into the positive oedipal phase. I argue that the preoedipal father-daughter relationship in the phallic-narcissistic phase can be thought to possess a particular quality, to contribute to partial resolutions of penis-envy-related narcissistic conflicts and thus help elaborate and consolidate the girl's sense and acceptance of her unfolding femininity. Transference material from the analysis of one adult woman patient and analytic material from another will be discussed to illustrate this thesis.
An introductory summary of the direction of current analytic theoretical interest in the father's place and functions in the life of the child will, I hope, show how attention came to be directed to the father's essential role in the development of a stable gender identity in the preoedipal boy—together with a tendency (as I see it) to neglect his importance in the emerging gender-related aspects of self and identity in the girl. A brief discussion of present psychoanalytic views on the girl's gender-identity development will then provide a theoretical background for my clinical observations.
That Freud attributed great significance to the father's place in the life of the child is well known. The father is seen as a source of major preoedipal and oedipal identifications, he provides protection and represents authority to the child. The precipitate of this authority, in the form of identifications resulting from the resolution of oedipal conflicts, forms the foundation of the superego. Freud, however, also commented (1931) that a disappointing or unintereste