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The author deals with 'the last chapter of Freud's paper, i.e., about the rock the psychoanalytic cure hits against'. It is important to make a distinction between penis and phallus, as Grunberger does. Chasseguet-Smirgel attempts to clarify the symbolic character of the penis. The mother as a real external object, lacking a penis, contradicts the fantasy of the all-powerful mother image. To possess a penis is then to triumph over the devaluated maternal image. This is related to Freud's hypothesis about the helplessness of the child and the concomitant narcissistic injury provoked by early frustrations that force the child to part with his primitive megalomania and to project it onto the mother. By possessing a penis the little girl hopes to get over the initial narcissistic injury. The man's penis is the symbol of the phallus.
The author does not reject the concept of penis envy as a defense against unaccepted femininity. Penis envy or possession of the penis in fantasy may interfere with the accessability of the repressed Oedipal wish; only in such eventuality is it justified to analyze penis envy in terms of defense. At the level of representations and symbolization, narcissistic injury and castration cannot be differentiated, although theoretically they refer to different levels of organization.