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Muriel Dimen's paper on gender introduces a new movement that has been shaped by postmodernist and feminist viewpoints. Her concept of gender refutes the traditional psychoanalytic thinking about masculinity and femininity. The view has been that women become real women by having husbands and babies. Dimen thinks that gender has ambiguous and conflicting aspects that are constructed within various social contexts.

Marc Kaminsky's essay 'Discourse and Self-Formation' offers an intelligent and sensitive exploration of the role multiculturalism plays and can play in psychoanalysis and the formation of personhood. He points out the conflicts generated and problems raised by the American and Western culture's demands for homogeneity and assimilation. His technique of layering analytic stories and metaphors in the text of his essay contributes to its strength. The psychoanalytic community has long downplayed the minority discourse.

Scientific meetings of the Assn for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis held Oct 24 and Nov 2, 1991 are summarized. Presenters and topics are Stephen M. Remen on creativity and violence, Susan Quinn on the girlhood of Karen Horney, Marianne Horney Eckardt on Horney's psychology, Helen Singer Kaplan on liberated women and male impotence, the Annual Karen Horney Lecture by Jean Baker Miller on growth-fostering relationships and Carol Gilligan on women's psychological development.

A panel discussion of psychoanalysts focused on relational and cultural aspects of female sexuality and desire. Topics included the impact of mother and daughter relationships on sexuality, the connection between sex and aggression, and psychoanalytic aspects of gender identity.

Psychoanalyst Alexandra Symonds, MD, passed away on May 20, 1992 at the age of 73. Symonds was a past president of the Assn for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and recipient of the Presidential Service Award of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis for her work on psychoanalysis and women. Dr Symonds also was founder and first president of the Assn of Women Psychiatrists. An Alexandra Symonds Memorial Fund has been established.