Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

DISCUSSION: Dr. Eleanor Galenson stressed her agreement with Dr. Blos's emphasis on the girl's preoedipal maternal attachment and on the adolescent girl's struggle over oral regressive impulses. She withheld judgment, however, on his explanation of superego differences. Regarding the observed infantile roots of female development, Dr. Galenson pointed out that the only biologic neonatal variable which has been demonstrated to persist on a sex-linked basis is the genital anatomical one. During the first year of life, while boys and girls behave differently, the reason for the differences has not been clarified. During the second year, masturbatory patterns in girls change following the discovery of sexual differences—some girls foregoing masturbation, others substituting nonmanual masturbation. Dr. Galenson did not agree that penis envy is aroused defensively to ward off aggression and regression to the early mother. Instead, she and Dr. Roiphe see penis envy as arising prior to the marked increase in hostility to the mother resulting from the realization of sexual differences followed by oral and anal regressions; only then is penis envy fused with earlier disappointments in mother. Those girls whose poor maternal relationship or other traumata contributed to a violent preoedipal