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In other women we find no evidence of this wish for a penis; it is replaced by the wish for a baby, the frustration of which in real life can lead to the outbreak of neurosis [Freud, 1917, p. 129].
This paper presents a dream fragment and its interpretation which link the despair and rage of infertility to penis envy and the wish for a baby in childhood. Brief reference is made to two of Freud's papers which demonstrate his understanding of at least two lines of development of the wish in girls for a child.
Ms. M, a writer in her early thirties, had been in treatment for several years when her painful and enraging confrontation with infertility began. Her body had always been a source of disappointment to her. As she put it, “I don't like being a woman; I don't know how to manage my body, I don't know how to read it.” Ms. M had a brother four years older of whom she was extremely envious, but in only one way: He was tall, lean, and had a “fabulous body.”
Ms. M had entered therapy for help with work inhibition, anxieties about marriage, and panic behind the wheel of a car. The phallic meaning to her problems was not lost on Ms. M and much of the analytic work focused on the many derivatives of Ms. M's penis envy, all of which made their way constantly into the transference. The analyst was many things—a devalued woman, a phallic mother, a disinterested father, a seductive father, and, of course, ultimately, a