Psychodynamic Conflicts in Female Law Students

In recent years, I have had the opportunity to observe a number of female law students who sought therapeutic intervention for depression at the university health service. I have been struck by the marked similarity in both the developmental history and psychodynamic characteristics of these students. Of central significance is low self-esteem resulting from the chronic absence of confirmation for independent initiative.

Law as a career choice appears to constitute a positive attempt toward resolution of this underlying conflict. Insofar as law is regarded as a social institution designed to safeguard autonomy and liberty, it is granted the highest esteem. The law is viewed unconsciously as a fair parent toward whom one might turn if one's power of autonomy were violated—a parent who would see to it that the insistence on exercising one's basic rights does not result in having to forfeit one's legitimate privileges. As potential lawyers and guardians of the law, these students experience themselves as being able to give to others the justice they have never received; for them, law as a career choice constitutes a positive attempt toward reparation of their own wounded self-esteem.

Typically, these students come from a large family constellation which is characterized by an unusual amount of sibling rivalry. The more disturbed parent (usually, but not always, the mother) is portrayed as overcontrolling, manipulative, and self-centered. The less disturbed parent has proved equally disappointing in his failure to provide a bulwark against the pathogenic influence of the other parent. More specifically, the principal deficit of this parent is seen as the failure to have taken the child's side in her quest for independence, or alternatively, to have provided an adult role model for independent initiative. This parent is regarded as a passive, ineffectual individual who has “sacrificed and betrayed” his children in order to preserve the equanimity of his relationship with h