The History of Feminism and Interpersonal Psychoanalysis (original) (raw)
Related papers
Relational psychoanalysis and feminism: a crossing of historical paths
Psychotherapy and Politics International, 2003
This paper examines the impact on and interaction between feminism and psychoanalysis over the last 30 years, including the contribution of its authors. It argues that the rise of the relational approach in psychoanalysis corresponds to, and in part stems from, a feminist vision. Gender-conscious psychoanalysis demands a change from a unilateral, analyst-centred, patient-as-object reality to a therapeutic encounter of a mutual reality co-created between two emerging subjectivities, analyst and analysand, in ways that parallel feminism's transformation of and critique of the univocal, male-centred worldview to bring in the voices of the marginalized. The relational approach to psychoanalysis allows fixed categories of gender to open up, and supports creative use of the analyst's subjectivity. The struggle to be connected and yet autonomous in the analytic relationship offers a possible model for relationships in society in general.
Cautionary Tales: Between Freud and Feminism
Constellations, 1999
Feminists have often turned to psychological knowledge in search of an adequate theory of gender, despite the ambiguous relationship psychology, in all its manifestations, has always had with politics. Mainstream psychology, with its theorizing of "individual differences" and popularizing of behavioral technologies, has long been a target of radical critique-which has made not the slightest blip in the steady growth of psychological "expertise" that, since 1945, has saturated Western culture with programs for individual change and development. Such programs have even played a part in encouraging collective political aspirations for subjective growth and renewal. Nonetheless, psychology's disciplinary project-one of treating all social conflict as amenable to individual solutions through the acquisition of skills and enlightenment-points more in the direction of its welldocumented role in producing agents of pacification than to practical help for personal liberation. 1 It has been precisely psychology's task in the modern world, as Derrida (glossing Foucault) has commented, to mask "a certain truth of madness … a certain truth of unreason." 2 As academic psychology's disdained yet closest rival, psychoanalysis has had a somewhat different cultural trajectory. Far richer in contradiction, far gloomier in social outlook, far more contentious in cultural debate, psychoanalysis (at least, in its classical form) promises not solutions to social conflicts, but a heightened awareness of their tragic inevitability. Traditionally, it has preferred to flaunt, rather than disavow, the conservative side of its reflections on the links between subjectivity and the "maladies" of modernity. Its pessimism of the intellect produces its own paralyses for those who wish to transform the links it describes (and helps reinscribe) between knowledge and power, sexed identity and social hierarchy. Certainly, feminism's relationship with psychoanalysis has always, and rightly, been troubled. Enthusiasm for and denunciations of Freud have preoccupied feminist agendas in almost equal measure. Such polarization is hardly surprising, if we try dispassionately to figure the contradictions-the seductions and the disappointments-of psychoanalytic narratives as they have been applied to our understanding of sexual difference. For that is the terrain, perhaps unfortunately, on which we so often encounter them today, and which I will be covering here. I say unfortunately, because it is here that psychoanalysis has moved farthest from what some of us see as its central strength: its potentially subversive individualism. The narratives grounding psychoanalytic theories of sexual difference have looked far from subversive to
Feminism and Psychoanalysis (Freudian Critiques)
This entry will discuss psychoanalytic feminism, not feminist psychoanalysis . Psychoanalysis develops a theory of the unconscious that ineluctably links sexuality and subjectivity together. In doing so, it reveals the ways in which our sense of self - as well as our political loyalties and attachments - are influenced by unconscious drives and ordered by symbolic structures that are beyond the field of individual agency. It is commonly assumed that any relationship between feminism and psychoanalysis would have to be founded on perfidious ground. For example, in Sigmund Freud's lecture on ‘Femininity,’ while discussing the “riddle of femininity” (Freud 1968 [1933], 116) or of sexual differentiation, Freud impeaches women as “the problem” (113) all the while exculpating his female audience from this indictment by offering the hope that they are “more masculine than feminine” (117). We can see why many feminists have been wary both of the gendered biases contained in Freud's theories and of the overt content of his claims. This entry will explain how and why feminist theory has, nonetheless, undertaken a serious re-reading of Freud and developed careful analyses of his fundamental concepts, working out their limits, impasses, and possibilities. It can be seen through the writings of such feminist writers as Juliet Mitchell, Jacqueline Rose, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray; Sigmund Freud’s work on psychoanalysis has offered feminists challenges, revolutionized theories, and patriarchal targets.
Conversation with Elisabeth Roudinesco, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 01/2019
Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 2019
JILL CHODER-GOLDMAN, LCSW In Global Perspectives, we bring you interviews with psychoanalysts from around the world in an effort to explore the influence of culture, politics, and socioeconomics on psychoanalytic training, theory development, clinical technique, and psychoanalytic practice in general. left my hotel in the 6th arrondissement and strolled south to Elisabeth Roudinesco’s apartment, passing through the famed Luxembourg Gardens. My walk was a fitting prelude to our conversation; I experienced a wonderful cross-section of the Parisian populace, a microcosm of the culture, if you will, in the beautiful setting of this classic French park. Men playing boulles, children playing football and tennis. Friends, young and old, were scattered about in garden chairs, in small groups, in animated discussions, reading or just enjoying the dappled sunlight of a late spring day. Dr. Roudinesco is a historian. She is also a psychoanalyst, but history is where her heart and passion lie. She was brought up with books, loves books, and when you walk into her home, you immediately feel the impact of her love of books, for it is filled from floor to ceiling with them: books on French history and philosophy, as well as autobiographies and biographies of well-known French historians, novelists, and psychoanalysts. The books are surrounded by plants of all sizes, both in her living area and on her outdoor balcony. Gardening is another one of her passions. I looked around before we began, thinking about how much she has not only read but written, for she is both a prolific reader and prolific writer, on topics ranging from the situation of psychoanalysis worldwide to the history of the French Revolution, perverts and perversion, Judaism and Auschwitz, and Lacan. Her most recent book, a biography of Freud, was prominently displayed on its own beautifully carved antique column. There was so much I wanted to talk about, but in the interest of time I tried to focus yet still include as many of her ideas as possible in our conversation.
Interview with Juliet Mitchell - Psychoanalysis and Feminism: Then and now
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2015
met with Juliet Mitchell to discuss her seminal text, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, forty years after its publication. Note As part of our planning, the interviewers decided that the interview transcript could be changed by any one of the three participants during editing. The transcript has provided the foundation of what follows, which we felt free to develop and edit in the interests of coherence, depth, interest and clarity. This approach reflects the idea that a fleeting interview has no privileged claim to truth within a longer sequence of thought and dialogue. However, we wish readers to know this, so that they are not misled as to the status of the following material. Wendy Hollway: The theme of this special section is Psychoanalysis and Feminism: Then and Now. You have looked back at the book already on some occasions, for example writing the new introduction for the 2000 edition. There have also been the twentieth anniversary occasions. To make it fresh, we could think about the links through the idea of 'afterwardsness'.
Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2001
Arising from the area of gender and sexuality, a revolution is taking place within psychoanalysis, one that has been developing for years and has recently burst forth more fully. It has spawned a landmark 1996 supplementary volume of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association; two new journals on gender and sexuality; and innumerable books, presentations, and articles. Generally, established institutes seem unaware of this revolution in a formal sense and have yet to change their required curriculums to accommodate it. Many male psychoanalysts, to judge by their lack of attendance at psychology-of-women or gender-related presentations or study groups, appear resistant, unaware that these changes will ultimately affect not only the way in which psychoanalysts think about women but about men. The changes are happening so fast and furious that even those immersed in them, who have brought about some of the most interesting results, have difficulty keeping up with the literature; as one psychoanalyst recently suggested, she was dancing as fast as