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Therese Benedek here secures a place with those 'feminists among analysts' who have made valuable contributions to the understanding of their sex. In so doing, she has confirmed many psychoanalytic postulates, has realized Freud's hope (1930) that endocrinology might some day provide further explanation for sexual behavior, has affirmed his belief (1940) that 'the disturbed chemistry of the [sexually] unsatisfied person produces anxiety and thus leads to other symptoms', and has once again demonstrated the value of psychoanalysis as an important instrument of biological research.
The greater part of this book was published in 1942 as a monograph by Dr. Benedek and Dr. Boris B. Rubenstein, an endocrinologist. Their purpose was to determine whether ovulation could be recognized in the emotions and behavior of women, and what governs their response to the fluctuations of their ovarian hormones during the sexual cycle. Their subjects were fifteen women in psychoanalysis (four with the author, five in supervision). The endocrinologist independently estimated the ovarian hormone production by daily vaginal smears and temperature charts. The analyst predicted the phase of the cycle by observing the changes and fluctuations in the psychosexual manifestations of their daily records.
When the results were compared, the psychoanalytic and the endocrinological data almost exactly coincided. Briefly, it was found that estrogen production was correlated with heterosexual trends, progesterone with passive receptive tendencies; that ovulation was characterized by a sudden decrease of active libido and a surge of narcissistic erotization, achieving the peak of psychosexual integration. There was found to be a correlation between each hormonal variation and the psychodynamic manifestations of the sexual drive; that parallel to and correlated with the hormonal cycle is an emotional cycle, together constituting the sexual cycle.
The sexual behavior of woman is determined by the int