Ambiguity of gender identity fantasies and aspects of normality and pathology in hypopituitary dwarfism and Turner's syndrome: Three cases |
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| Authors: | David Raft Roger F Spencer Timothy C Toomey |
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| Institution: | 1. Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine , University of North Carolina School of Medicine , Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514;2. Associate Professor of Psychiatry , University of North Carolina School of Medicine , Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514;3. Assistant Professor of Psychology , University of North Carolina School of Medicine , Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514 |
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| Abstract: | Three cases of short stature females are presented, two with, gonadal dysgenesis and one with hypopituitarism, all about the same age, social class, and intelligence. One of the subjects with gonadal dysgenesis was normally functional; the other depressed, but she became functional after psychotherapy. The patient with hypopituitarism was poorly adapted and failed to change on brief effort at psychotherapy, discontinuing treatment. Evidence is drawn from transference and observational material that disturbances in the mother‐child relationship may lead to persistence of unreasonable wishes to grow physically. This leads to a split in the ego which prevents adaptation to small stature because it is not acceptable to the patient. In the case which was successfully treated, it is shown that the acceptance of the defective self led to restoration of ego functions adaptive to small stature. |
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