Book excerpt: Sigmund Freud was unquestionably one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, yet over the last few decades his theory about women has suffered severe criticism from feminists and many psychoanalysts. How could this great genius have been so wrong about women? In The Freudian Mystique, Samuel Slipp, a training and supervising analyst, offers an explanation of how such a remarkable and revolutionary thinker for his time could formulate such incorrect theories about female development. Tracing the gradual evolution of patriarchy and phallocentrism in Western society, Slipp examines the stereotyped attitudes toward women that were taken for granted in Victorian culture and strongly influenced Freud's thinking on feminine psychology. Of even greater importance was Freud's relationship with his mother who emotionally abandoned him, the loss of his nanny, and the death of his brother Julius - all before the age of three. These losses occurred during the separation-individuation phase, disrupting the normal differentiation from his mother and consolidation of his gender identity. Slipp examines not only Freud's preoedipal but also the continuing postoedipal conflicts with his mother from both an object relations and family therapy perspective. He shows how Freud's unconscious ambivalence toward his mother influenced his personal relationships with women and shaped his theory of child development. Freud emphasized the role of the father and the oedipal period, while excluding the mother and the preoedipal and postoedipal periods. Not limited to one perspective, The Freudian Mystique analyzes how the entire contextual framework of his family relations, anti-Semitism, politics, economics, science, and culture affected Freud's work in feminine psychology. The book not only looks backward but also looks forward to formulating a modern biopsychosocial framework for female gender development.