Female homosexual patients in psychoanalysis

There are few psychoanalytic publications on female homosexuality, but those that do exist have each contributed to our knowledge not only of homosexuality in women but also of femininity. Homosexuality in women is a defence acting in two directions: against going backwards (out of fear of psychical fragmentation) and against going forwards (and working through the Oedipus complex). Identification with the father's penis is generally regarded as characteristic of female homosexuality, but my experience suggests that it is not always present, because, where sexual differentiation is less well established, identification with the baby predominates. While some patients break off their analysis prematurely out of fear of psychical fragmentation and the depressive position, other patients manage to overcome their anxieties and repeat and then work through in the transference the early object relations contained in their homosexual fixations, so that they can find their way back to a better established female identity.