Essential Papers on the Psychology of Women edited by Claudia Zanardi Essential Papers in Psychoanalysis. New York:  New York University Press, 1990,  viii + 510 pp., $55.00; $25.00 paper

We know less about the sexual life of little girls than of boys. But we need not feel ashamed of this distinction: after all, the sexual life of adult woman is a dark continent for psychology.

Starting with Freud's formulations on feminine development in the 1920s and culminating with his 1931 paper on female sexuality, the great debates of the 20s and 30s within psychoanalysis had to do with the primary versus secondary nature of female sexuality and the derivative issues of penis envy, superego formation in women, the role of masochism in female development, and the reasons for the girl's shift in object choice from the mother to the father (and her wish for a baby). The main antagonists in the early controversy were Karen Horney and Ernest Jones versus Freud. In the years that ensued other key issues were brought into the debate,