The Impact of Feminism on the Practice of a Woman Analyst*

This presentation will cover some observations made in the past few years on changes in the nature of referrals, in the content brought to the analysis, and in the types of transference and countertransference problems seen by women analysts.

Despite the fact that psychoanalysis is an area in which prime importance is given to sexual needs and strivings, psychoanalysts have given remarkably little thought to the effect of a therapist's sex on the therapeutic process. The literature is filled with descriptions of treatment techniques, the importance of the interpersonal relationship between doctor and patient, and transference and countertransference problems. But even the discussions of the latter are written mostly in terms of personality characteristics which vary independently of sex. Although women have been major thinkers and workers in psychoanalysis (Anna Freud, Thompson, Horney, Deutsch, and Klein, to name a few), even they have written little on this subject. For example, Clara Thompson stated that age, cultural background, sex, and personality of the doctor are important only in the beginning of treatment and when they strongly influence the patient's choice.1 Horney discussed the rivalry many women feel with a woman analyst that is not felt with a man and cautioned against emphasizing the importance of sex in the choice of an analyst.2 Freud did refer directly to the advantage that a female therapist might have in certain clinical situations. In Female Sexuality, he stated that women had the advantage of being suitable mother substitutes in the treatment situation.3

The whole area of therapist sex variables has been ignored almost in the proportion to that in which patient sex variables have been discussed. Clearly, women analysts are not the same as their male counterparts, although they are equal to them. They bring to their work different attitudes and are perceived by patients in very different ways. Women therapists provide badly needed