Daughter of a Don Juan--a syndrome.

Abstract

Promiscuous behavior Ms attracted a great deal of l i terary and psychological a~tentio,n, and s~dh behavior on the par t .o~ the male ha~s been conceptualized ur~4er the name of Don J~an. Studies about this particular behavior concern themselves with the specific psychodynamics o~ the promiscuous penson and his relation to wovnen in general. F'eniehel summarized these investiga tiorLs in the following words: "Don Jaan ' s behavior is, no doubt, d we to his Oedipus complex. He seeks his mother in: all women and cannot find her. But the analysis of Don Juan types sho~ws that this Oedipus complex is of a particular kind. I t is dominated by the pregenital aim of incorporation, pervaded by narcissistic needs arid tinged with sadistic impulses.. In other words, the striving for sexaal satisfaction is still co~r~dens.ed with the ~striving for getting narcissistic s~poqlies in order to maintain self esteem. There is a readiness to develop sadistic reactions if this need is not immediately satis~ed. ''*~ Suc~h a psycho dyn.aznic constellation can be expected to exert great influence on the psychological development of a child growing up. in its shado,w. To the author's kno~vlec~ge) no interest was demonstrated in this aspect of the Don Juan problem. Given the ldnd of father described by Fenichet and the kind of marital s~tuation in which such ,behavior can be openly indulged in, what p.sycholo,gical deve~]opments can one predict in a girl child o~ suoh ~amily? Other things being equal, one can hypothesize that the particular co,mbination of a promiscuous father and an acquiescing ~mother would result in an intensification of the Oedipus situation. The ,girl would experience in,tense feelings of arousal .and rejection, would be unable to ibuild a viable psy~hosexual identity because of a ,lack of an adequate ego-ideal, and ulti~mately m~ght develo~p a male identity as a last effort to gain her father 's love. In the follo~in.g pages, the writer wishes to report the results of intensive psyc~oan.alytieally oriented psychoth'erapy with three