Theoretical and clinical perspectives of Individual Psychology: reflections on psychic hermaphroditism

Authors

  • Andrea Ferrero

Keywords:

psychic hermaphroditism, hermaphrodite, body, greek mythology, symbolism, gender identity, masculine protest, femininity, ambivalence, intrapsychic conflict, teleonomimc model, antithesis

Abstract

Taking its cue from Ovid's myth of Hermaphroditus and his sexual ambiguity (which seems to become conscious after his union with the Naiad Salmacis), the complex relationship between masculine and feminine is discussed, which the Adlerian perspective, of cultural origin, places in the comparison between intrapsychic and interpersonal, and in which the two psychic elements are associated with different value judgments, resulting in masculine protest.
The reflection is then broadened, thanks also to a clinical case, to how, in general, antithetical and dichotomous modes of thinking are in themselves reinforced fiction at the service of a supercompensatory goal of superiority that excludes social feeling (typical of psychoneurosis), whereas reality is instead made up of nuanced differences and not opposites

Published

2025-08-14