Psychoanalytic Perspective on Male and Female Paths of Separation

This master's thesis is devoted to the theoretical and practical study of one of the fundamental processes in the formation of the human psyche - separation and its peculiarities in accordance with gender identity. Like any intrapsychic event, separation is never fully completed, but is reproduced in one form or another at each and every stage of life. Much will depend on the quality the first meeting and the first separation - symbolization abilities; withstanding frustration; possibility of the work of grief; as well as the capacity to establish mature object relationships. This study contains a synthesis of the main psychoanalytic concepts of separation from Freud to his followers M. Klein, K. Abraham, M. Maller, R. Spitz and modern authors A. Green, J. Schaffer, J. Cournu, R. Lopez-Corvo, R. Perelberg and others. Additionally, this research raises the question: do separation processes occur in the same way in men and women? By connecting the concepts of separation and sexuality, anatomy and phantasmatic spaces, early object relations and gender-role identity, the authors find important answers from a practical standpoint for working with both separation issues and the integration of masculine and feminine in the psychoanalytic process. Special attention is paid to the study of separation in the consulting room: how separation anxiety manifests itself, what types of transference reactions and defenses are encountered, as well as the question of “masculine” and “feminine” both in the psychoanalytic frame and in the figure of the analyst. In the empirical part of the paper, using the example of working with patients of different sexes, the separation difficulties faced by both men and women are examined, as well as their choice of symptoms, which essentially are compromises of their intractable separation conflicts.