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The difficulties that are met when attempting to draw an outline for sexual maturation derive from the fact that sexual development is only one part of total development and growth, and thus cannot be considered in isolation, divorced from the development of the total personality. In view of total growth, sexual development is at an optimum when successive developmental phases follow each other without any greater conflict and without the burden of unresolved traumatic experiences. At each developmental stage the biologically functioning live body must be linked with the psychic development of the self, with human relations and self-realization. Physical sensations, fantasies and real experiences of human communication become easily mixed up, like a bagful of jigsaw puzzles, and consequently must be put in place at every stage of development. The pieces of the puzzle may well be universal, but they must be put together again in an ultimately individual way.
Essentially, the differences between female and male sexuality are primarily related to specific bodily features and consequently to psychophysical differences, and only secondarily to the sublimated parts of sexuality. In addition to the external genitals that are visible and tangible, and whose function is perceivable like those of the male, the female has an “inner space”, hidden and invisible (Erikson, 1951, 1968b; Hägglund et al., 1978), or “inner genitals” in Kestenberg's terms (1956, a, b). She is endowed with the biological creativity of motherhood, and the psychophysical and sublimated creative qualities of personality that are embedded in the two-person relationship of the pre-oedipal phase and the three-person relationship of the oedipal phase.
Based on Freud's observations, psychoanalytical research and theory formation have viewed female sexual development mainly with regard to the