This article affords me an opportunity for après-coup reflection on personal experiences that contributed to shaping the motivations that determined my theoretical choices. The attempt to find explanations for clinical diversity that were not reduced to drive theory led me to draw up a model of thought in psychopathology that allows for different production mechanisms for the same type of symptom and requires differential and specific therapeutic interventions. My dissatisfaction with the Freudian views on femininity showed me the way toward the role of the adult, of the parents, in the evaluation of the self of the child, examining gender differences in the intersubjective theory of sexuality. Symptoms such as hysteria, anorexia-bulimia, and the high incidence of anxiety and depression in women require an understanding of the interpersonal and gender-related factors in its causation.