ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a historical overview of psychoanalytic thinking about gender and masculinity, beginning with Freud. I then present my own view, which is that the prephallic, phallic, and genital features of a man’s internal experience are best understood as coexisting positions in varying, discontinuous balances that shift as a man matures, rather than representing distinct developmental phases that supersede one another in linear fashion. Other post-Freudian theoretical developments within the field are presented and discussed at length, including some key contemporary perspectives on gender. Implications for psychoanalytic treatment are discussed, as well as the concepts of gender binaries and phallic logic. I also discuss at length the disidentification theory and its status as a widely accepted theory of male development, after which I explain my own revisioning of this theory in light of new ways of thinking about men and masculinity that have emerged in recent decades—both in psychoanalysis and, more generally, in Western culture.
