Choice-Rezension

Tabin's thesis of the early development of both sexes is a brilliant synthesis of established psychoanalytic theory. She interweaves three major developmental trends usually defined separately. For her, the emergence of the maturing ego and gender identity is interdependent on separation/individuation, self modeling on the same-sex parent, and awareness of sexual feeling for the opposite-sex parent. The confluence is first at its peak in the second year of life, which Tabin calls ``the primary oedipal phase.'' Later this stage unfolds into the classical oedipal phase. Tabin sensibly points out that father is present from the beginning. This questions the usual notion of initial exclusive awareness of mother which only later includes the father. The child's continuous refining self-development therefore occurs between the adults of both sexes. Acknowledging this, it is possible to see active sexual conflict, tinged with the cognitive development of a two year old concurrent with the struggle for autonomy in the separation-individuation phase. Tabin richly illustrates her theory both from clinical material, and published work of others, and she tests her novel shift of theoretical emphasis persuasively in illuminating the dynamics of anorexia nervosa. Psychoanalytic theory, especially ragged in its dealings with multiple foci of the preoedipal period, has awaited this able integration. University collections.-R.H. Balsam, Yale University