The Elusiveness of Masculinity

Primordial Vulnerability, Lack, and The Challenges of Male Development

Bibliographic Data

ID9230745
AuthorsMichael J Diamond (0000-0002-8827-1440, Training and Supervising Analyst at Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, Los Angeles, California., corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume84
Issue1
Pages47-102
Publication date2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Psychoanalytic Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-2828 • E-ISSN: 2167-4086
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/j.2167-4086.2015.00003.x
PMID25619366
OpenAlexW2002310056
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited74

Reaching beyond the Oedipus prototype to address the unrepresentable vulnerability founded on the boy's infantile helplessness in contact with the mother's body, the author aims to identify the inherent tensions and enigmas of being male. He proposes that both the repudiation of femininity and the overvaluation of phallicity are unconsciously constructed to withstand the fundamental deficiency grounded in the asymmetry of the boy's prephallic relation with his primary object. This bodily based primordial vulnerability, marked by absence and lack, remains elusive-an unsymbolizable experience that provides the archaic matrix for adaptive and defensive phallicism, the oedipal complex, and genital progression. A clinical vignette is presented to illustrate these concepts

Agency (philosophy) · Computer security · Developmental psychology · Epistemology · Femininity · Learned helplessness · Masculinity · Object (grammar) · Psychoanalysis · Vignette · Vulnerability (computing) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Child Welfare and Adoption · Computer Science · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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