Psychic hermaphroditism waiting for Gilania

044_Sergio De Dionigi_Niccolo Cattich_ITA

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Summary.  The psychological peculiarities that are ascribed to man and woman represented to Alfred Adler an oppurtunity to deal the theme of “reasoning by contraries”, through the concept of Psychic Ermaphroditism. A short historical excursus revisits clichés about masculine and feminine characteristics contemplating the unmasking acted by Adler over the neurotic pre-judice. The myth of Hermaphroditus is evocatively fit for representing the symbol of an ambivalence, which emphasizes the importance of subjective living for “feeling” male or female, but on the other hand it gets space for concepting an objectivation of neuropsychological sides typical in two sexes. Even through the evaluation of the “autopoietic systems theory” by Maturana and Varela, and throguh the hermeneutics by H.G. Gadamer, we suggest an additional interpretation of Hermaphroditus myth, trying to understand the “Masculinity Crisis” by a fiction: could it ever be an “organ-inferiority” specific for males behind their ancient superiority complex?