Jacqueline Schaeffer is a full member and training analyst of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society. In 1986 she was awarded the Maurice Bouvet prize in psychoanalysis. She is a former assistant editor of the "Psychoanalytic Debates" series and editor of the 'Revue Francaise de Psychanalyse' published by the Presses Universitaires de France (PUF). She has published several papers and has been the keynote speaker in many conference meetings throughout the world.

• Preamble -- Preface -- Repudiating the Feminine Sphere (The Sphinx and Her Forlorn Soul) -- Epistle to the Reader -- Freud and the "repudiation of femininity" -- The "internal foreign body" -- The difference between the sexes -- The "lover-for-ecstatic-pleasure" -- Clinical examples -- The witch-hunt (a tale of hatred of the feminine sphere) -- In Conclusion -- Preludes to the Feminine Sphere -- Horror feminae, or non-dangerous de-liaisons -- "The Sleeping Beauty"—the advent of the feminine sphere in girls -- The tenant: the vagina on lease from the anus -- Rubies abhor red: hysterical relationships and counter-cathexes -- Hysterical identification and projective identification -- From narcissistic to traumatic seduction (when the siren meets the snake) -- "I love you": words of betrayal or words betrayed? -- The family album: reality-testing and remembering—re-finding the object -- Gradiva: representations of the feminine sphere -- Postscript