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.