Penis envy: what is this concept according to Freud’s ideas?

Summary about the characteristics of the psychoanalytic concept of penis envy, already outdated.

Psychoanalysis is one of the most classical currents of psychology and also one of the most criticized. Many of its assumptions have been questioned, especially those related to the theory of psychosexual development, a fundamental pillar of its thinking.

Among the most famous concepts proposed by Sigmund Freud is that of penis envy, a feeling that would occur in the female sexually active.a feeling that would occur in preschool girls and that, as its name suggests, is the desire to possess the male genitalia.

This idea has been very popularized since it was formulated, and also very criticized, especially if one takes a feminist and scientific perspective. Let us now understand this idea and its controversy in more detail.

What is penis envy according to Freud?

One of the fundamental concepts within Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, specifically within his theory of psychosexual development and female sexuality, is the idea of penis envy or "pensineid". According to Freud, this is a feeling that arises in girls when they discover that they are not anatomically equal to boys, seeing that they do not have a penis.seeing that they do not have a penis. Girls would feel injured and mutilated in comparison with the male sex and begin to develop the castration complex.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory puts forward the idea that as sexual development progresses, girls will experience the Edification complex. will experience the Oedipus complex and penis envy will take two main forms. The first will be the purest desire to possess a penis inside them, and to be able to have a child in the future, while the second will be the desire to have a penis during intercourse.

This fundamental explanation of the most Freudian psychoanalysis would be the one used by Freud to justify would be the one used by Freud to justify the appearance of pathologies and psychological sublimations in the female sex..

History of the concept in psychoanalysis

At the origins of his theory of sexuality, Freud did not have a very different opinion between boys and girls with respect to their psychosexual development. He was of the opinion that there was a more or less symmetrical relationship. In fact, in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality of 1905, in which he addressed how infantile sexuality evolved, in its first edition he makes no mention of the question of penis envy or "penisneid".

It was in 1908 when, in his text on Infantile sexual theories begins to explain the idea of penis envy, talking about the fact that girls tend to be interested in male genitalia. This is "proof" that they feel penis envy, that they wish to possess one and to be on a par with people of the male gender.. In this book he comments that when girls say that they would prefer to be boys, they show that they feel the lack of the male organ.

Already in 1914 Freud uses the term "penisneid" to account for the castration complex in the girl child. Later, in 1917, he published On the transmutations of drives and especially of anal eroticism, in which Freud uses the term "penisneid" to describe the castration complex in the child.in which in which he talks about how this envy evolves along the sexual development, turning into the desire to haveHe talks about how this envy evolves along the sexual development, becoming the desire to have a son or the desire to have a man as a kind of "appendix of the penis".

Development in the phallic phase

Here we will see the way in which, always according to Freud's ideas, penis envy hypothetically develops.

As we have already mentioned, penis envy in Freudian psychoanalysis refers to the theory of how girls react when they learn that boys have an organ they do not have: the penis. During their psychosexual development they become increasingly aware that they are different from the male sex and, in Freud's opinion, this finding would be decisive in the development of gender and sexual identity in women.

Penis envy can be placed within Freud's theory of psychosexual development. Freudian psychosexual development theory in the phallic phase, between 3.5 and 6 years of age.. In this period of development the libidinal focus is mainly in the urethral area, which coincides with the genitalia in the human body. It is in this phase that the vagina and the penis acquire great importance, especially the male genitalia.

Freud defines libido as the primary energy force of motivation, which focuses on other physiological areas.which focuses on other physiological areas. Depending on the stage of development, this libido will be found in one place or another. For example, in the oral phase, which corresponds to 12 to 18 months of life, libidinal energy is concentrated on the desire to be able to eat, suck and bite, and in the anal phase attention is focused on the anus and feces.

When the phallic phase is reached, the penis becomes the organ of primary interest in both sexes, male and female.both male and female. It is the catalyst for a series of events fundamental to psychosexual development, including the Oedipus complex, parental relationships, sexual orientation, and the degree of adjustment to the expected gender role. Shortly after this phase has begun, the infant develops its first sexual impulses towards its mother.

In the female case, the girl realizes that she is physically she is not physically ready for a heterosexual relationship with her mother, since, unlike boys, she is not physically ready for a heterosexual relationship with her mother.The girl, unlike the boy, does not have a penis. The girl longs for a penis and the power that goes with it both socially and relationally. It would be this particular moment when penis envy would occur. The girl sees the solution to her problems in obtaining her father's penis.

The child develops a sexual desire for her own father. develops a sexual desire for her own father and blames her mother for not having given her one. or, directly, to have castrated her, apparently. She interprets this as a kind of punishment from the mother for attracting her father. The girl redirects her sexual impulses from her mother to her father, realizing that she can indeed maintain a heterosexual relationship, but with the father. She aspires to acquire the same sexual role as her mother, and thus be able to eliminate and replace her.

In principle something similar would happen in the case of boys, only that the main difference is the focus of sexual impulses, since in the male case there is no need to change from the mother to the father. Since they already have a penis, boys could have a heterosexual relationship with their mothers, without the need to redirect their sexual impulses towards the other parent. Boys feel sexually identified with their father, although they also feel emasculated, since the presence of their male parent prevents them from being able to relate sexually with their mother.

Criticism of the concept of penis envy

Nowadays, the idea of penis envy has become the idea of penis envy has become largely obsolete due to its sexist, pseudo-scientific and ethically questionable nature.. Basically, the idea behind this concept is that women want to resemble men anatomically because they have an organ that gives them power, and it is only that organ that completes a person. One could interpret Freudian psychosexual development theory to mean that women are incomplete men.

Today psychoanalysis itself, or at least the currents that have evolved within it, reject these ideas. Even so, the term is still used colloquially the term is still used in a colloquial way. to say that women would like to have a penis or describing the anxiety that some men suffer because of the size of their genitals, since we still live in a society in which the phallus seems to be very important from an anthropological perspective.

Among the most remarkable criticisms of the concept of penis envy we have it in the figure of Karen Horney, a psychologist who dared to criticize the major current of thought of her time. Born near Hamburg in 1885, she managed to study medicine at a time when women had serious difficulties to study at university, which says enough about the type of person she was.

After graduating, Horney specialized in psychoanalysis. specialized in psychoanalysis in Berlin under the tutelage of Karl Abraham, one of Freud's most prominent disciples.. Abraham not only taught her about this psychological school, but also offered her therapy, since Horney was suffering from depression and sexual problems in her marriage.

Abraham's interpretation was that Horney was hiding her repressed incestuous desires towards her father, an explanation that Horney considered really stupid and, to top it all, it did not help her to fix her sentimental situation. It was thus that she began to question psychoanalysis, something that would eventually make her quite popular.

Based on her early criticisms of the major school of thought of her time, it was only a matter of time before she confronted the Freudian concept of penis envy. Horney did not believe at all that girls, even from an early age, could be envious of an organ. What I did believe was that they were actually envious of the rights and privileges that men possessed simply because they had a phallus, and that they longed to enjoy such a position in society.

Still in Germany and working at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, Horney realized that the psychoanalytic assumptions did not conform to the reality of human behavior.. Psychoanalysis had focused too much on a biologistic view of behavior, instead of dealing with psychological problems in a social key, as was the case with penis envy. It was not a question of having a penis or not, it was a question of there being a marked social inequality between men and women. Without knowing it, Horney was sowing the seed of feminist psychology.

His view on the concept of penis envy was not limited to questioning it, but also turned it around in a quite radical way. Those who were biologically envious were not women of men because they had penises, but men of women because it was the female sex that could engender life, give birth. Men provided the semen, but those who "manufactured" a new human being were, without a doubt, those who possessed a uterus, hence he spoke of uterus or vagina envy.

Bibliographical references:

• Laplanche, Jean & Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand (1996), Diccionario de Psicoanálisis, translation Fernando Gimeno Cervantes. Page 118. Barcelona: Editorial Paidós. ISBN 978-84-493-0256-5.
• Ferrell, Robyn (1996). Passion in Theory: Conceptions of Freud and Lacan. London: Routledge. ISBN 0203012267.
• Friedan, Betty (2013) [1963]. The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud. The Feminine Mystique (50th anniversary ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 9780393063790.
• Kaplan, H.; Saddock, B.; Grebb, J. (1994). Kaplan and Saddock's Synopsis of Psychiatry (7th ed.). Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins. ISBN 0-683-04530-X.
• Irigaray, Luce (1985). This Sex Which is Not One. Ithaka: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801415462.