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Analytic patients, boys and girls in schools, camps, group residences, treatment and custodial facilities, form the observational base on which the author examines the interplay of aggression, narcissism, and sexuality, especially in latency girls. Competitive strivings, scapegoating, self-depreciation and sadism, bisexual strivings and identifications, sibling rivalry, lying, and transitory stealing are all, if not in extreme forms, viewed as expectable expressions of aggression in girlhood. Pathological manifestations of aggression include extreme forms of the above plus stealing (outwardly directed aggressions), more commonly inwardly directed aggression resulting in ego inhibition, learning disorders, and apathy. In pathologically aggressive girls, manifest shame seems conspicuously absent but underlying deep humiliation and castrated self-image are evident. Fighting among these girls, as compared to aggressive boys, is more primitive and impulsive but rarely leads to murder. Running away is another frequent behavior complex, the result of multiple motives and having possible suicidal implications.
The author's final point concerns the current aggressive responses of women to Freudian concepts. She views these responses as defensiveness resulting from misapprehension of the concepts. She suggests new terms: "genital complex" to replace "castration complex," "envy conflict" to replace "penis envy," as an effort to reduce the contention aroused by the old terms.