Women are more preoccupied with 'inner space' than men who have been oriented toward the externial world early on. It was assumed that girls are mystified by their anatomy and that hidden inner genitalia evoke such orientation. Thus they transmit female narcissism through the generations. It becomes an adaptive effort at controlling their environment inner and outer. Women's survival depends on loving and being loved which is displayed in their relationship to their daughters.
Narcissistic involvements are ambivalent and can easily evolve into sadomasochistic relationships.
Sophie Freud comments how often we observe cruelty and negativity in such relationships. In order to develop into a woman a daughter needs sufficient libidinal resources to identify with her female partner-overcoming the ambivalence in order to have the confidence to go out into the world and find her own man to be loved by him as she was loved by her mother and as her mother was loved by her father. Where the mixture of feelings go awry there are disturbances in self representations, conflict in gender identification, career problems and difficulties in intimate relationships with men. Our panelists will look at an intergenerational research study that observes the personality of young girls growing up and becoming mothers and their sense of mothering directed to their children. We shall also explore the motivations for women who need two men in their lives and the effects of sexual and other maternal abuse of a daughter - the famous poet Ann Sexton.