Feminine Issues and the Relational Turn: “The Girls Deserve More Respect”

ABSTRACT

The second wave of feminism deserves recognition for its contribution to the relational ethos. I suggest that the feminist contribution to psychoanalysis has been part of a larger cultural shift toward equality, connectedness, and increased attention to human stories about real-life experiences, including trauma. In addition to expanding the ranks of analysts, women have challenged the field to examine and modify libido theory, its power alignments, and the clinical roles available to the analyst. In the clinical case, I seek to convey a feminist sensibility—rather than a program. This sensibility embodies many maternal qualities, such as concerned listening, affect attunement, mentalization, openness to the unknown, and the attribution of seriousness and meaning to the suffering other.

Notes

¹ I acknowledge some early feminist critics of traditional psychoanalysis: Benjamin, Chessler, Chodorow, Gilligan, Gornick, Greer, Miller, and J. Mitchell. I also acknowledge more contemporary feminist voices in psychoanalysis: Dimen, Gentile, Goldner, Harris, Layton, and Stein.

² Mitchell, Ghent, Stolorow, Hoffmann, Levinson, Donnell Stern, and Bromberg, for example, do not explicitly credit the feminist movement in their writings.

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Joye Weisel-Barth

Joye Weisel-Barth, Ph.D., Psy.D., is a senior instructor, training analyst, and supervisor at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. She teaches courses in Basic Analytic Concepts, Freud, Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience, Attachment Theory, and Varieties of Relational Psychoanalysis. Joye is Book Review Editor for Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and a frequent contributor to major psychoanalytic journals. Her analytic practice is in Encino, California, and she loves her doggies.