Castration fantasies and assertiveness in father-absent males

In a previous report (Shill 1981), father-absence was linked to insecurity in core male gender identity in a nonclinical sample of college males. The present paper describes further aspects of the experimental use of projective techniques, based on psychoanalytic theory and clinical discussions, to assess the effect of father-absence on male personality development. Castration fantasies and sense of competence in the mastery of external reality as an index of masculine self-representation were coded from the projective test responses of 103 father-present and 28 father-absent college males. When given a choice of castrating figure at the human or animal level, all subjects identified the human mother rather than the father as the more frightening castrating figure. Father-absent subjects, however, identified the animal mother as the more frightening castrating figure, compared to the animal father, more frequently than the father-present subjects, suggesting a denial and displacement of castration fear toward the human mother onto the animal substitute. The father-absent subjects also evidence significantly less sense of mastery, suggesting less self-assertiveness and sense of competence than the father-present controls. The importance of identification with the father as the basis for a masculine ego style and of father absence as a developmental interference affecting the appropriate management of aggression in males is discussed.