Contains six essays and an introduction on Freudian and non-Freudian views of female sexuality. Contributors include Joyce McDougal, Maria Torok and Bela Grunberger.

These papers all examine the role of the Oedipus complex in the psyche and relates it to urgent issues of social and cultural life, historical and current.

This is an account of the psychoanalysis of creativity, pseudo-creativity and the perverse mind. The author explores art, film and literature.

Once the ego-ideal is distinguished from the super-ego, it becomes possible to make sense of much that formerly remained obscure in psychoanalytic theory. Chasseguet-Smirgel illuminates not only the psychology of narcissism in individuals but many of the connections between psychic life and society.

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel versucht unter systematisch-theoretischen wie unter klinischen Gesichtspunkten das vieldeutige Konzept des Ichideals genauer zu fassen und dadurch unter anderem Phänomene wie Perversionen, Verliebtheit, die Bedeutung von Gruppen, die verschiedenen Formen von Kreativität oder die Rolle der Mitmenschen bei der Bewertung unseres eigenen Ichs besser zu verstehen.