The Evolving Psychoanalytic Vision of Boyhood(s) and Masculinity(ies)

Abstract

Over the course of the past century, the dominant psychoanalytic paradigm for understanding boyhood and male gender identity development has been grounded in two complementary visions: Freud's original formulations and, later, the propositions of Ralph Greenson and Robert Stoller. Each of those visions, history suggests, contain a certain harshness, rigidity, and fixity about gender roles and can even be seen as supporting an unhealthy bifurcation between male and female. In the last generation of psychoanalytic scholarship, a viable alternative vision about boyhood and becoming men- what I term the psychoanalytic view- has emerged and increasingly gained structure, definition, and traction. In this paper, I identify some of the important elements of that evolving vision (still very much a work in progress), review briefly three robust areas of current post-structural focus, and consider some of the differences between past and present conceptualizations. While not ignoring pathology and dysfunction, the post-structural psychoanalytic vision also gives voice to health and function, variation and differentiation, creation and construction, and life; it can be seen as a reclamation of the positive and a celebration of the infinite hope, promise, and possibility of all that is boys and boyhood. Keywords: POST-STRUCTURAL PSYCHOANALYTIC VISION, DISIDENTIFICATION, PARENTAL ALLIANCE, FAMILY ALLIANCE, MALE GENDER IDENTITY, BOYS AND BOYHOOD If Freud's theories on female development reveal a certain lack, as is currently considered to be the case in even the most orthodox of psychoanalytic circles, would it not logically follow that his theories on male development may divulge different, yet equally problematic inadequacies '(italics in original; Christiansen, 1996, p. 97). The contemporary psychoanalytic vision of boyhood, men, and masculinity bears little resemblance to the original Freudian vision set forth approximately a century ago. What we see today is a far more fluid, flexible developmental conceptualization of boys to men, which attempts to increasingly give voice to complexity, possibility, and the manifold socio cultural forces that affect the construction of male gender identity (Corbett, 2009; Person, 2009; Reis & Grossmark, 2009). While the classical Freudian view has its adherents, it is now but one view in an open, evolving system of thought about how boys begin to form, shape, knit together, and congeal their own vision of what it means to be a man in today's world (Lieberman, 2006; Person, 2006; Pollack, 1995a). Over the past generation of psychoanalytic scholarship, the traditional phallo centric (even misogynistic; Fogel, 2006) perspective of psychoanalytic developmental theory has been repeatedly challenged (e.g., Chodorow, 1989, 1994; Diamond, 2006; Fast, 1990; Fogel, 1986), has been found lacking explanatory power for male (and female) gender development (Fast, 1984; Person, 1986), and calls for a new psychoanalytic vision of boyhood and masculinity have been increasingly made (Diamond, 2004a, 2004b; Pollack, 1995b). While most of last century's psychoanalytic writings about male gender identity development were heavily dominated by Freud's original formulations (Diamond, 2009), that has become less and less so since the mid-1980s, and in many ways, a new era has dawned in the psychoanalytic quest to better and more completely understand the process and experience of boyhood, masculinity, and boys becoming men. Although many psychoanalytic developmental theories exist (see Tyson & Tyson, 1990), three particular perspectives seem to have emerged over the past approximate one hundred year period to explain male gender identity development: The Freudian vision (Freud, 1923 a/1 960, 1923b/1959), the GreensonStoller vision (Greenson, 1966, 1968; Stoller, 1964, 1965), and the contemporary, post-structuralist psychoanalytic vision (Corbett, 2001a, 2001b, 2009; Diamond, 2004a, 2004b, 2006, 2007, 2009; Fast, 1990, 1999; Pollack, 1995a, 1995b), which is informed by efforts to (1) consider gender and gender identity as socially influenced and socially constructed, (2) more fully incorporate cultural influences into our understandings of the gender identity formation process, and (3) examine the richness offered by alternate viewpoints (e. …