The book takes a developmental psycholocial perspective on female masochism looking at how the views on masochism have matured from Sigmund Freud's and Helene Deutsch's classical theses to modern object relations and self-psychological terms. Janine Chasseguet- Smirgel's concept of "dual identification" seems to bring together the two pathways of feminine identity development: The subjectivity of containment intergrating into itself the paternal identification, the subjectivity of mastery.