title: [Difficulties in becoming a woman and staying a woman. On the problems of female identity in menopause].
abstract: With a very few exceptions, the sparse psychoanalytic literature on menopause has regarded it almost exclusively as a kind of ailment, a process of decay and loss. By contrast, recent feminist discourse has demonstratively set itself apart from Freud's theory of femininity and emphasized the opportunities that the menopause brings, albeit at the expense of female sexual desire. Hettlage-Varjas and Kurz suggest that critical review of Freud's theories and more recent concepts of femininity can be integrated into psychoanalytical theory on the psychology of conflict and instinctual drives. They thus avoid the equally dangerous temptations either of classifying the female climateric as pathological or else denying the anxieties and sense of loss that involves and declaring it a conflict-free zone.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001828:Body Image; D002979:Climacteric / Q000523:psychology; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005260:Female; D005619:Freudian Theory; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008593:Menopause / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011606:Psychosexual Development
vernacular_title: Von der Schwierigkeit, Frau zu werden und Frau zu bleiben. Zur Problematik weiblicher Identität in den Wechseljahren.