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Karasu and Socarides have chosen articles that blend psychoanalytic insights with applied psychoanalytic, sociopsychological, historical, anthropological, educational, and philosophical considerations. The articles vary widely in their quality and in their relevance to psychoanalysis. Three broad aspects of sexuality are addressed: development, deviance, and related social issues. One curious note is that in a book purporting to deal with the psychoanalytic theory of sexuality the phallic phase is mentioned only in passing.
The well-known work of Eleanor Galenson and Herman Roiphe begins the section on development. They have demonstrated that the child's discovery of anatomical differences takes place earlier than Freud hypothesized and that boys and girls react to it differently. Although they confirm Freud's emphasis on the girl's vulnerability to penis envy and castration fantasies, they question his conclusion that this is the initiator of oedipal phase development. Galenson and Roiphe emphasize that the girl's reactions are determined largely by earlier experiences and by the quality of her relationships with her parents.
We must recognize that there is not full agreement with all of Galenson and Roiphe's theoretical conclusions. They postulate, for example, that the development of symbolic functioning in girls appears to be influenced by their reactions to the discovery of the difference between the sexes and that a severe castration reaction predisposes a girl to a negative oedipal libidinal organization. A considerable number of variables, including aspects of object relations, genetic constitution, and cognitive functioning, however, must also be considered to understand the evolution of symbolic functioning and of the girl's oedipal development.
From the sexual concerns of two year olds we advance to an account of the current sexual attitudes of adolescents. Aaron H. Esman, in a sociological, anthropological, and cultural study of adolescence, offer