Masculine and Feminine: The Natural Flow of Opposites in the Psyche by Hill Gareth S

Author:Hill, Gareth S. [Hill, Gareth S.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2001-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

Fig. 30. Pornographic drawing by a young man.

Or perhaps such a mother raises a girl child who identifies with her in the pattern of Linda, whom we saw in the last chapter. Her male child, in the absence of a father with whom he can identify, will identify with her expression of dynamic-masculine potency and develop a fascination with being a woman, feeling his phallic potency in relation to images of cross-dressing and being powerful in the way his mother was powerful. This may sometimes be lived out concretely. Depending on other factors, it may or may not accompany a homosexual orientation. When he can’t cross-dress, he may, like Linda, seek to be mirrored by performing well, or take the center of attention by histrionically complaining of his sufferings. His sufferings are very real, and they were neither seen nor heard within his family. The therapist must mirror his experience while supporting, from the static-masculine stance, his capacity to stand up to the dangerous and frightening images of the dynamic masculine, which manifest in dreams as dangerous strangers, gangs of toughs, Nazi jailers, or sadistic women. The phallic-mother pole of the complex will rise up to attack these efforts of the therapist, insisting that the ego personality is not up to it. The therapist must hold his ground delicately, demonstrating his capacity to support the client’s autonomy—unlike the mother—and soothing him as he suffers the terror of risking autonomy from the mother and finding his authentic place in the world.

Certain anorectics are yet another variation of this theme. Here, the static-feminine envy of the child’s potential for dynamic-masculine autonomy takes the form of a kind of conditional mirroring that seems to say, “That’s very nice, dear, but don’t you think you should do it just a little differently?” (Geist 1985). Again, the static-masculine influence is weak or absent, and the symptom, however perverse, represents a heroic effort to stand against the static feminine, and its unconscious, destructive dynamic masculine, in the form of narcissistic willfulness about food (“You can’t feed me another thing!”) and of prowess through grueling athletic performance. It fails, of course, because it is perverse, perpetuated by the parents’ envy-ridden, ambivalent mirroring, and the child remains eternally tied to the complex. Here again, the therapist must delicately mirror the client’s experience while supporting from a static-masculine stance the client’s positive dynamic-masculine potential and soothing the client as she suffers the terror of finding a place in the world independent of parental approbation.

Further along the continuum we find a range of immaturities or psychopathologies characterized by phallic narcissism. Some apparent narcissistic personalities (as herein characterized by an attitude that says, “See how wonderful, special, entitled, omnipotent I am!”) have fundamentally sound ego development because they have been attuned to and positively mirrored as they are by an adequate static-feminine presence in their upbringing. The static-feminine presence, however, has difficulty letting go and supporting the seeking of a static-masculine ideal. There has been a masculine presence, but it has

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