Discussion of D. W. Winnicott's Article, Split-off Male and Female Elements Found Clinically in Men and Women: Theoretical Inferences

Dr. Winnicott describes an analytic experience with a male patient which deeply moved him and convinced him about the existence of a female part in the male personality.

As one follows Dr. Winnicott's interpretations of the case material, it seems that he first comes to the conclusion that the female part of the patient was created by the mother as a result of her treating her child from birth as if he were a girl. Dr. Winnicott seems to think that it was the madness of the mother which created the delusion in this boy of his being a woman. Later in the paper, however, he makes clear that he believes that male and female parts of the personality exist, in all men, and the clinical syndrome and difficulties are caused by the female part becoming split off. He also describes in his case material the conflicts in men between male and female elements. He gives as an example how the female part may hope to get control over the male part of the personality, which may culminate in the idea that the analysis will eventually enable him to become a woman.

Winnicott expresses surprise that his interpretations of oral-erotic and oral-sadistic impulses in the transference had not helped the patient until the split-off female part was released through interpretations. He eventually comes to the conclusion “that the female part had found a primary unity with the analyst and this gave the man a feeling of having started to live.” In developing the last point further, he forms the hypothesis that the female part is created by primary identification and fusion with the breast “where the baby becomes the breast (or mother).” He also stresses that “this pure female self has nothing to do with object-relating.” It is created by the “good-enough mother” who gives the child at the beginning of life an experience of omnipotence that is a foundation for the experience of being. “This kind of mother does not produce a child whose female self is envious of the breast, since breast and child