Abstract
Although the psychoanalytic literature on preoedipal development is extensive, this chapter focuses specifically on issues pertinent to preoedipal development in girls. Early psychoanalytic writers wrote from various perspectives about early feminine sexual development. K. Horney and Ernest Jones proposed the concept of primary and innate femininity and viewed the phallic phase as a defensive compromise-formation. In the 1950s, Phyllis Greenacre and Judith Kestenberg wrote extensively about pregenital sexual development in girls. Greenacre's Emotional Growth defines and differentiates penis awe and penis envy. Envy involves covetousness and resentment based on comparisons of anatomical differences with a male peer. In Explorations in Psychoanalysis: Collected Papers, Ralph Greenson defines awareness of anatomical and physiological structures in oneself, assignment of gender by parents and others, a biological force present at birth and disidentification from mother and the development of a new identification with the father.
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