Lars-Johan Schalin is a teacher in the Finnish Psychoanalytical Society. His extensive psychoanalytical work, since 1960, with a great number of both male and female analysands has contributed to his profound understanding of the development of both boys and girls. In this book, he pictures how both parents according to their gender influence their sons and daughters, respectively. As his theoretical frame of reference, Schalin uses Freud's drive theory and Margaret Mahler's object relations theory. The book consists of four chapters, each chapter describing in detail the developmental phases of the boy or the girl and illustrating