In the third dream she attempted to steal the penis from her father:

It was a long time ago when she was a child, although in the dream she appeared as an adult. She was in her father's room. She stole some money from his pants and stuffed it into a condom. In her haste, she dropped the condom and it rolled under the bed. She got down on her hands and knees and felt for it. She found it, but her hands got dirty. A policeman chased her. She feared the dirty hands would give her away.

We have selected four dreams, typical of this period in the therapy, to illustrate the different mechanisms used by the patient to incorporate the penis. The particular dreams that follow are self evident in their symbolism, and it is precisely for that reason that we have selected them. In the first dream the patient made use of oral incorporation:

The next example demonstrates the disastrous effects of an imagined power failure incident to a change in sociobiological status. The patient was a very successful, power driven, professional woman, characteristically aggressive and domineering, who developed a chronic postpartum depression after the birth of her first child.

Some women, instead of resorting to dependency, attempt to repair feelings of weakness, inadequacy, and inferiority through compensatory striving for power. These women find dependency abhorrent 'because it is demeaning to their self esteem. They are engaged in a constant struggle against an underlying wish to be dependent, which, in the end, they reject.

The next example demonstrates the same ideation, but the appeal for a penis is made to the mother and completely by passes the father. The patient in this instance was a dependent homosexual woman of 26 who was living in a mother daughter type of homosexual relationship with an older woman. She entered therapy because she was dissatisfied with her existence and saw no future in it.

The interactions between the dependent woman and her social environment that generate the wish to be a man are best demonstrated through clinical material. The first example is that of a dependent young woman, who lacked confidence in herself, and, in spite of repeated efforts, was unable to find a job. She always made such a poor impression on the prospective employer that inevitably she was turned away.

What is dependency? It is a technique of adaptation through reliance on another person. It is based on a conviction of helplessness and is normal in infancy, but infantile dependency in the adult is a confession of adaptive failure. The developmental prototype for the dependency relationship is the relationship between the child and the mother.

The adaptational responses of women to these institutional pressures in many ways are similar to the responses of members of the minority group in a caste system! Many women although by no means all consciously reject this prejudicial picture of themselves, but it is doubtful that few, if any, completely escape its deleterious effects on an unconscious level.

Masculine aspirations are frequently expressed by women patients during the course of a dynamic psychotherapy. The interpretation placed upon these aspirations by the therapist can be of vital importance to the ultimate outcome of the therapy.

Risk factors anything in our thinking, behavior, body or environment that increases the likelihood of illness are opposed by "resistance resources" we possess. These may include an optimistic way of looking at life, a good social support system, and a strong set of genes. The balance between risk factors and resistance resources largely determines whether we get sick or stay healthy.