On the girl's psychosexual development: reconsiderations suggested from direct observation

Following on two decades of longitudinal direct observation of young children, revisions of two component parts of psychosexual theory seem warranted. First, direct observation does not support the concept of a "phallic" phase as being representative of the girl's first genital phase. Observational findings challenge "phallic" concept-dependent hypotheses Freud proposed in 1925, including how the girl enters her Oedipus complex as well as the nature of her wish to have a baby. In the children observed by the author, phallic aggression was not manifest as much in girls as in boys, between the ages of two and four. Second, it is proposed we put aside the "phallic" phase concept in our considerations of the girl's dynamics and that we heighten our awareness of her early experiences of ambivalence--which lie at the heart of the oedipal conflict--and which leads to a formulation of superego development in the girl more compatible with clinical findings.