We Have Many Voices! Discussion of Janet Zuckerman’s “Look Who’s Talking! The Ongoing Problem of the Female Voice”

Abstract

In this commentary on Zuckerman’s “Look Who’s Talking! The Ongoing Problem of the Female Voice,” I consider the two loosely woven threads of this stimulating essay. First, I expand on Zuckerman’s ideas concerning the integration into psychoanalysis of work focused specifically on behavior change and propose that behavioral and psychoanalytic work done in tandem, by the same dyad, can offer multiple advantages related to the finding of voice. Then I take up in more depth the project of finding voice as it relates specifically to women. Through a prism of feminist and social constructivist approaches to psychoanalytic theory, I reflect on gender and power as well as on the multiple registers through which voice may be heard.

Keywords:

• women’s voices
• psychotherapy integration
• exposure
• feminism
• psychoanalysis
• social construction

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa S. Lyons

Lisa S. Lyons, PhD, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst. She is on the faculty of the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies Program in Integrative Psychotherapy, and the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey. Her recent writing focuses on the intergenerational transmission of trauma, psychoanalysis and culture, waking dreams, and the integration of Relational Psychoanalysis and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She practices in New York City and Teaneck, New Jersey.