A schematic overview of the development of male and female gender identity has been presented with an attempt to formulate a developmental line. The steps include: (Table: see text) In discussion of these steps an effort was made to distinguish between core morphological or core gender identity--that is, the primary sense of being male or female, to which other aspects of gender identity are added over the course of development to eventually include a "mix" of masculinity and femininity; gender role identity, which includes the conscious and unconscious mental representations of dialogues with other people vis-à-vis one's gender identity as well as identification with role models; and the separate process of choosing a sexual partner orientation. These separate strands join together and intermingle to make up what we view globally as "gender identity."
In an increasingly unsettled and violent world, with swelling numbers of children who are abused, abandoned, or neglected, emotionally if not physically, and an increasing population of aggressive preschool children with anxiety and disruptive behavior disorders who cannot be contained in ordinary settings, psychoanalysts can make a contribution. Early intervention is essential. In very early childhood, new procedural memories for interacting with others and for regulating affects can be formed more easily than they can ever be again. Intervention should aim toward helping the child develop a sense of agency, establish moral standards, assume self-responsibility, and attain the capacity for emotional regulation. The principles of complex dynamic systems can inform psychoanalytic treatment strategies, as demonstrated with five children whose cases are presented.
A s we look back over the history of psychoanalysis and ahead to the future, we might agree that no theoretical area has seen more controversy, or presented more challenges, than psychoanalytic developmental theory. The challenge of understanding the mind and feelings of a child and the ways this understanding might provide a lens through which to view the mind of the adult has led psychoanalysts to propose numerous theories of conscious and unconscious mental functioning. As experience and reflection reveal the explicatory failures and other shortcomings of these theories, they are modif ied or replaced and the cycle starts again.What follows is a commentary on the evolution of psychoanalytic developmental theory, interwoven with the whole of psychoanalytic theory, and on the challenges it currently faces-and poses. This will not be an historical overview or critical exegesis. Instead, I have chosen to use the vicissitudes of the theories of af fect and af fect regulation as a way of approaching the broader issues. I have chosen this strategy because of the centrality of feeling states to psychic life, interpersonal interaction, the clinical situation, and the developmental process, and because competence in af fect regulation inf luences the balance between impulse and action, strengthens the capacity to tolerate frustration, ambiguity, and ambivalence, and contributes to complexity in object relations and social interaction. I have chosen it also because of a contemporary clinical urgency to find effective means of prevention and treatment for children unable to regulate affect, and because the quest to understand the nature of af fect has led to the evolution of several models of the mind. Using very broad strokes, I will try to paint a picture of past and current psychoanalytic views of affect (for a comprehensive summary of affect theory, see Stein 1991) and will then briefly survey research from related fields that challenges j a p a P h y l l i s Ty s o n 20
Object relations are central to contemporary structural theory. This paper first reviews the various ways in which the key concept object constancy has been used. To reconcile the apparent contradictions in definitions, the concept is viewed along a developmental continuum in which each step is defined by its functions. It is proposed that at its most mature stage, a capacity for affective self-regulation is achieved, a capacity that is central to characterological structure formation and optimal adaptation. Possible interferences with the achievement of mature object constancy are briefly explored.
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