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Blos, P. (1957). Preoedipal Factors in the Etiology of Female Delinquency. Psychoanal. St. Child, 12:229-249.

(1957). Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 12:229-249

Preoedipal Factors in the Etiology of Female Delinquency1

Peter Blos, Ph.D.
In the study of delinquency we can distinguish two fronts of inquiry. I refer to the sociological
determinants on the one hand, and to the individual psychologicalprocesses on the other. These two
fronts of inquiry are essentially different; yet by the very fact that they study the same phenomena, they
become readily confused with each other to the detriment of clarity and research. Both aspects are
intrinsically and essentially interwoven in each case. However, our understanding of a case would be
incomplete as long as we fail to distinguish between the "early unconscious predisposing factors (so-
called endopsychic factors)" and the "constitutional and precipitating factors" (Glover, 1956); due to
this differentiation it has become customary to speak of latent and manifest delinquency. In
this communication I shall restrict myself to a discussion of some predisposing psychodynamic factors
as they can be reconstructed from the overt delinquent behavior and supported by the historical data in
the case.
Delinquency, by definition of the term, refers to a personality disturbance which manifests itself in
open conflict with society. This fact alone has pushed the social aspect of the problem into the
forefront, has stimulated sociological research which in turn has thrown light on those environmental
conditions which are significantly related to delinquent behavior. My concentration in this paper on the
individual process shall not, I hope, be construed as an expression of my disregard for the contribution
which sociological
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1 Some material on which this paper is based has been presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Orthopsychiatric Association, Chicago, March, 1957; and the American Psychoanalytic Association, Chicago,
May, 1957.
2 Madeleine Borg Child Guidance Institute, Jewish Board of Guardians, New York, N. Y.
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research has made. The study of delinquency has by necessity always been multidisciplinary and it
should not be claimed by any one discipline as its exclusive domain of inquiry.
Delinquency statistics tell us that antisocial behavior has been on the rise for some time; this goes
hand in hand with a general rise in adaptive breakdowns in the population as a whole. This rise
in delinquency can not be considered as an isolated phenomenon but must be seen as part of a general
trend. This view becomes even more convincing if we accept the opinion supported by Healy,
Aichhorn, Alexander, Friedlander and others, namely "that the differences in the psychological make-
up of the delinquent and the non-delinquent are of a quantitative rather than of a qualitative
kind" (Friedlander, 1947). We have also become familiar with a change ofsymptom picture in the
field of the neuroses; the classical conversion hysteria is less prevalent nowadays and has given way
to other forms of personality disturbances, best summarized as pathology of the ego. Anxious parental
gratification readiness and even gratification anticipation of children's instinctual needs seem to
account for many cases of low frustration tolerance and dependency which we observe in children's
clinics; contributing to this confusion is the parents' surrender of their own intuitive know-how to
advertisement and extraneous controls. Under such conditions the child's ego is exposed to insufficient
and inconsistent stimulation with the result that more or less permanent ego defects ensue; they become
apparent in the malformation of delaying and inhibiting functions. The powerful drive toward
immediate discharge of tension is typical of the delinquent, and the age of instinctual tension-rise
is puberty. At this time the individual normally re-enacts his personal drama on the
wider stage of society, and it is of course at this juncture of maturational stress that the inadequacy of
the ego becomes apparent.
 If I compare the cases of delinquency which come to our clinics today with those cases I remember
from my work with Aichhorn in Vienna in the twenties, I am struck by the difference, namely the
predominance of poor ego integration and impulse disorders which we see today. Aichhorn's classical
saying (1935), namely that the delinquent has to be turned into a neurotic in order to make him
accessible to treatment, seems applicable today only to a small portion of the delinquent population.
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The study of the psychodynamics of delinquency has always been prone to fall prey to general and
over-all formulations. Prevalent ideas in the field of humanbehavior and its motivation have a tendency
to provide the master plan for its solution. In fact, etiological determinants change with prevalent
psychoanalytic research; the instinct-gratification theory as well as the theory of the
missing superego have been left way behind; considerations of ego pathology have moved into the
foreground. I do not question Kaufman's and Makkay's opinion (1956) when they say that an "infantile
type of depression" due to "actual or emotional desertion" is found to be a "predisposing and necessary
element in delinquency"; but it is equally correct to say that depressive elements are to be found in all
types of emotional disturbances of children. What puzzles us most in the delinquent is his incapacity
of internalization of conflict, or rather the ingenious circumvention of symptom formation by
experiencing an endopsychic tension as a conflict with the outside world. The exclusive use
of alloplastic, antisocial solutions is a feature of delinquencywhich sets it apart from other forms of
adaptive failures. It stands in clear contrast to the psychoneurotic or to the psychotic solution, the
former representing anautoplastic and the latter an autistic adaptation.
Up to a certain point all cases of delinquency have psychodynamic similarities, but it seems to me
more profitable to study their differences. Only by this method shall we penetrate into the more
obscure aspects of the problem. In expressing a warning of this kind, Glover (1956) speaks of
"etiological clichés" such as the "broken home" or "separation anxiety." He continues: "It requires no
great mental effort to assume that traumatic separation in early infantile years must have a traumatic
effect; but to convert this into a direct determining environmental factor in delinquency is to neglect
the central proposition of psycho-analysis that these predisposing elements acquire their pathological
force and form in accordance with the effect of their passage through the varying phases of the
unconscious Oedipus situation." My clinical and theoretical remarks proceed from this point, especially
as far as preoedipal fixations preclude the oedipal stage from consolidating and thereby prevent
emotional maturation.
It has always been my opinion that male and female delinquency
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follows separate paths, indeed are essentially different. We are familiar with the different
manifestations of both, but we would like to be better informed about the origin of the divergences.
Our thoughts immediately turn to the divergent psychosexual development of the boy and girl during
early childhood. And, furthermore, it seems relevant to recall in this connection that the structure of the
ego depends to a significant extent on the existing drive organization which is subject to different
vicissitudes in the male and female. The study of identifications and of the self-representation to which
they lead in boy and girl explain the dissimilarities in ego development in the two sexes.
If we review the cases of male and female delinquency of which we have intimate knowledge,
we gain the impression that female delinquency stands in close proximity to the perversions; the same
cannot be said with regard to the boy. The girl's delinquency repertoire is far more limited in scope and
variety than the boy's; it furthermore lacks significantly in destructive aggressive acts against persons
and property, and also concedes to the boy the rich field of imposter-like adventuring. Thegirl's
wayward behavior is restricted to stealing of the kleptomanic type; to vagrancy; to provocative,
impudent behavior in public; and to frank sexual waywardness. Of course, these offenses are shared by
the boy offender; they constitute, however, only a fraction of his transgressions. In the girl, it
seems, delinquency is an overt sexual act or, to be more correct, a sexual acting out.
Let us look at the way this disparity comes about. In female delinquency the infantile instinctual
organization which has never been abandoned breaks through with the onset of puberty and finds a
bodily outlet in genital activity. The pregenital instinctual aims, which dominate the
delinquent behavior of the girl, relate herdelinquency to the perversion. An adolescent boy who, let us
say, is caught in an ambivalence conflict with his father might defend himself against
both castration fear and castration wish by getting drunk, by destroying property, or by stealing a car
and wrecking it; his actions often are, even if abortive, nevertheless an attempt at a
progressive development (Neauks and Winokur, 1957). The boy's typical delinquent activities contain
elements of a keen interest in reality; we furthermore recognize his fascination with the
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struggle waged between himself and people, social institutions and the world of nature. In contrast to
this, an adolescent girl who possesses an equal propensity toacting out will, let us say, take revenge on
her mother by whom she feels rejected by seeking sexual relations. Girls of this type have told me of
persistent fantasies during sex play or coitus, such as: "if mother knew, it would kill her" or "you see
(mother), I have somebody too." Aichhorn, in a paper on sex delinquent girls (1949), considers the
predisposing condition to outweigh any environmental factor. With reference to the rampant juvenile
prostitution in Vienna after World War II he states that his observations led him to "believe that one of
the causes of their [young prostitutes'] behavior was a certain emotional constellation. Milieu and
deprivation were only secondary factors." Perhaps cases of delinquent girls which have been classified
as psychopaths might be viewed as cases of perversion. Schmideberg (1956), in a recent paper, pursues
similar trends of thought. She contrasts the neurotic and the perverse reaction or symptom,
emphasizing the fact that the former represents anautoplastic and the latter an alloplastic adaptation.
She continues: "In a certain sense the neurotic symptom is of a more social kind, while the perverse is
more antisocial. Thus there is a rather close connection between the sexual perversions and delinquent
behaviour, which is by definition antisocial." The impulsivity which is equally strong in acting-
out behavior and in the perversions is well known. I hesitate to generalize as Schmideberg does, but
would stress the point that the identity ofdelinquency and perversion outstandingly corresponds with
the clinical picture of female delinquency, while it constitutes only one special variant in the diverse
and far more heterogeneous etiology of male delinquency.
It is a justified request at this point to ask for those reasons which permit the view that male and
female delinquency are differently structured. For this purpose it is necessary to turn our attention to
those differences which distinguish the psychosexual development of the male and female child. I do
not intend to retell a well-known set of facts, but instead I shall highlight some relevant points of
difference between the sexes by focusing on selective stations in the developmental schedule of
earlychildhood. The developmental foci which will stand out in what follows represent also potential
points
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of fixation which shall lead the adolescent boy or girl into totally different crisis situations.
1. All infants perceive the mother in early life as the "active mother." The characteristic
antithesis at this period of life is "active" and "passive" (Ruth Mack Brunswick, 1940).
The archaic mother is always active, the child is passive and receptive in relation to her.
Normally an identification with the activemother brings the early phase of
primal passivity to an end. It should be noted here that a bifurcation in the psychosexual
development of boy and girl is already foreshadowed at this juncture. The girl turns
gradually toward passivity, while the boy's first turn toward activity becomes absorbed
later in theidentification which the boy normally forms with his father.
The early identification with the active mother leads the girl via the phallic phase into an
initial active (negative) oedipal position as a typical step in herdevelopment. When
the girl turns her love needs to the father, there always exists the danger that
her passive strivings toward him will reawaken early oraldependency; a return to this
primal passivity will preclude the successful advancement to femininity. Whenever an
unduly strong father attachment marks the girl's oedipal situation, we can always suspect
behind it the precursor of an unduly deep and lasting attachment to
the preoedipal mother. Only when it is possible for the girl to abandon her passive tie to
the mother and to advance to a passive (positive) oedipal position can she be spared the
fatalregression to the preoedipal mother.
2. The first love object of every child is the mother. The girl abandons at one point this
first love object, and has to seek her sense of completeness as well as of fulfillment in
her femininity by turning toward the father; this turn always follows a disappointment in
the mother. Due to the fact that for the boy the sex of his love object never changes,
his development is more direct and less complicated than that of the girl.
In contradistinction to the boy, the girl's oedipal situation is never brought to an abrupt
decline. The following words by Freud (1933) are relevant: "The girlremains in the
 Oedipal situation for an indefinite period, she only abandons it late in life, and then
incompletely." Due to this fact the superego in the female is not as
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rigidly and harshly erected as it is in the male, it consolidates only gradually and remains less
tyrannical and less absolute. In the girl the oedipal situation continues to be part of her
emotional life throughout the latency period. Is perhaps this fact responsible for her
ready turn to heterosexuality early inpuberty? At any rate, we observe in
female adolescence a regressive pull which exerts its influence in the direction of a
return to the preoedipal mother. This regressive pull, determined in its strength by the
existent fixation, is reacted against by the exercise of excessive independence,
hyperactivity, and a forceful turn toward the other sex. This impasse is dramatically
displayed at adolescence in the girl's frantic attachment to boys in the attempt to
resistregression. A regression will result for boy and girl alike in
a passive dependency with an irrational overevaluation of
the mother or mother representative.
3. The question has often been asked why preadolescence in boy and in girl is so markedly
different; why the boy approaches his heterosexuality which is ushered in by puberty via
a prolonged perseverance in