Chapter 20 Sterility and Envy1

This paper was read before the 20th Congress of the International Psycho-Analytical Association, Paris, July–August, 1957, and published in 1958 by the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 39: 139–143.

For several years I have been concerned with the investigation of feminine disorders. Having arrived at certain conclusions, I shall summarize some of them in this paper, although what interests me here is to show how the writings of Melanie Klein – first her discovery of female development (9) and early anxieties (8) and, more recently, her study on envy (7) – have contributed to my greater understanding both of the causes and the underlying psychosomatic mechanisms of these disorders.

In collaboration with Dr. Celes Cárcamo I published a paper on sterility (1944) (2) that was followed by a book (1951) (10) on the subject of female procreative disorders. In the chapter on sterility eight cases of sterile or infertile women were presented, whose study had led me to the following conclusions: one common factor in their family constellation was a predominating mother figure while the father was weak, rejecting or absent. Another factor shared by these patients consisted of their having suffered severe oral frustrations, in half of the cases owing to a new pregnancy of the mother. But what especially drew my attention was a particular circumstance found in seven of the cases, which I was to find again in other patients: unusual tragic events had occurred in the infancy of these patients, for instance, the mother’s death during delivery, an outbreak of puerperal psychosis in the mother, the death of a younger and rival sibling, all accidents connected with maternity. The infancy of only one out of eight patients was free from serious external traumata; but she was the youngest child, and as

we know, the fantasies that are frequent in such cases refer to having magically prevented the mother from having another baby owing to the strength of their jealousy. Hence they