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In a recent clinical note, Waltzer (1974) presented a borderline patient who avoided her vagina and used her umbilicus as a substitute. Although his thesis is partially convincing, my own clinical experience indicates that some female patients use the umbilicus as a reassurance against and denial of the painful fantasy that females are actually castrated males. The interest these patients have in the umbilicus relates primarily to the fact that important males in their environment possess an organ exactly like one which they themselves have; its hypercathexis can aid them in denying genital differences between themselves and the males around them. Such interpretations have been made by Roiphe (1968), Galenson and Roiphe (1971), and have been implied by Heilbrunn (1975).
This brief report on one woman and two girls is presented because the woman, unlike Waltzer's and Heilbrunn's borderline patients, had a moderate transference neurosis and was interested in someone else's umbilicus, while the two girls maintained or developed their interest during the phallic period.
Case I: A little girl began to suffer moderately severe penis envy following the birth of a brother when she was eighteen months old. At about two years of age, she developed an interest in her father's umbilicus, an interest that lasted for two years. She would stay nearby when he changed into informal attire after returning home from the office. When his arms were upstretched in pulling off or putting on a shirt, his undershirt at times would rise, exposing his umbilicus. The child would then laugh with glee and announce triumphantly that she had 'seen it'. Teasingly, she would state that she wanted to insert her finger into it and would laughingly persist in such attempts, despite her father's efforts to discourage her. She had a list of people's 'privacies'