Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to H E Lerner.
For many women, passive-dependent behavior serves a protective function in the maintenance of primary relationships. The therapist's ability to identify and appreciate the systemic meaning behind the patient's dependent posture is an important factor in facilitating autonomy and self-direction.
A systemic approach to resistance allows the individual therapist to appreciate the adaptive, protective, systems-maintaining aspects of "help-rejecting" behaviors which might otherwise elicit negatively toned interventions that serve to heighten or rigidify a resistant impasse. This article illustrates how a systemic perspective assists the psychodynamically oriented psychotherapist in adopting a neutral and respectful attitude toward a patient's resistant posture, and also explores implications for the theoretical understanding and technical management of resistance.
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Explore the source record for details and available documents.
There has been considerable controversy concerning adaptive versus pathogenic effects of sex-role stereotypes on individual development. The author evaluates both the positive and negative consequences of sex-role stereotypes without regard for any particular sociocultural definition of masculinity or feminity. She hypothesizes that the degree to which sex-role stereotypes are adaptive and facilitative (as opposed to restrictive and pathogenic) is inversely related to the degree to which an individual has consolidated a comfortable and stable gender is identity. Implications for parenting and treatment are elaborated.
A survey of sex education literature confirms parents' self-reports regarding sex information imparted to their children. With relatively few exceptions, young children (and even teenagers) are taught that "boys have a penis and girls have a vagina," without further linguistic distinctions made regarding the sensitive external genitals of the female child. It is suggested that this incomplete, undifferentiated, and often inaccurate picture of female genitals prevents the growing girl from achieving pride in femininity, and may lead to anxiety and confusion regarding her sexuality. A case is presented in which the failure to label the girl's external genitals was a contributing factor to penis envy, as well as to conflicts about "looking" which led to symptomatic learning inhibitions. It is suggested that the ubiquity of the female "castration complex" may not stem primarily from the fact that the clitoris is a smaller (and thus inferior) organ compared to the penis. Rather, the girl's feeling of being "cheated" may reflect parental failure to explicitly acknowledge that the vulva (especially the clitoris) is an important aspect of "what girls have." Because visible and sensitive aspects of the girl's genitals are not labeled for her, the girl may feel that she does not have "permission" to develop into a sexually responsive and complete woman. As in the case presented, penis envy may be a symptom expressing the wish to have one's female sexuality "validated," but which also serves to block this forbidden wish by inhibiting sexual responsiveness and pride in femininity.
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Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.