Halberstadt-Freud argues that healthy female development involves resolving an ambivalent tie to the sadomasochistically tinged fantasy of the phallic mother; feminine development does not involve any change from the maternal object itself. Femaleness is rooted in a primary feminine identification. Unlike the boy, whose movement away from mother represents his not being like her, the girl's pursuit for autonomy invariably intensifies her identification with her mother and provokes a conflict between her murderous impulses and her primal wishes for "symbiotic illusion." Halberstadt-Freud discusses how biological realities, social norms, transgenerational influences, and maternal and paternal response influence the girl's fantasies about her sexuality, her sense of self, and her maternal relationship. She also addresses how menstruction, adolescence, the relationship with the father, childbirth, and motherhood bear on the girl's separation-individuation process from the preoedipal mother.