You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Robert Stoller has written a book that is significant both in its innovative content and its carefully wrought investigative method. Stoller has devoted some twenty-five years to the study of gender disorders. In this book, he provides detailed information and formulations concerning extremely feminine boys and other persons with gender disorders. He presents some noteworthy propositions that aim to modify traditional concepts of gender development.
Stoller gathered data about fifteen very feminine boys and their families by treating the mothers through analysis or intensive analytic psychotherapy while the boys were treated by other therapists. The fathers were available only for initial evaluation, since, without exception, they refused to enter a treatment program.
The children comprise a rare group at the extreme end of the continuum of femininity in boys. From the earliest age at which gender characteristics are discernible—about one year—these anatomically normal boys displayed feminine traits. As they developed, they became graceful and charming, dressed like girls, preferred to play with girls, and spoke, walked, and behaved like girls. In fact, they were often mistaken for girls.
Stoller found that these boys came from families with a particular psychodynamic configuration. Typically, the boy's mother had been rejected by her own mother because she was not a boy, and she had shared masculine interests and activities with her father. As an adult, without any hint of romance, she had married a man who was weak and passive and whom she could control. When the son was born, the mother regarded him as very beautiful. She bestowed unusual amounts of care on him and engaged in "unending" skin-to-skin contact and soulful gazing into his eyes. She established a remarkably intimate, harmonious, nontraumatic symbiotic relationship. As the boy grew and developed feminine traits and behavior, the mother continued to adore her offspring. The