On Finding Clara Thompson

In reading the “History of the William Alanson White Institute,” delivered by Clara Thompson in 1955, I felt a deep sense of gratitude to Donnel Stern for bringing us the voice of a treasured founder, a psychoanalytic leader. I had much earlier discovered the works of Clara Thompson for their liberating feminist criticisms and for elucidating a two-person psychology with an increased attentiveness to the analyst's subjective and idiosyncratic presence, but that was early on my journey to become a psychoanalyst.

A couple of years ago, I found myself enchanted—I think that is the best way to describe my feelings—again with this bold psychoanalyst. The fact that she too loved the Outer Cape and the freedom of Provincetown became a fascination. I interviewed analysts who knew her and who also summered on the Cape about their experiences with her in this unique community. Not only did I unashamedly feel I shared something with her—certainly, my love of the Cape—but my attraction to her seemed further fueled by the notion that she brought a sexual liberation into the analytic discourse that was still largely unarticulated and certainly not attributed to her. With the exception of Sue Shapiro's (2002) essay that speaks to Clara's unconventional life choices and the meaning those choices had for her as a beginning psychoanalyst.

The Second Sex, by French feminist writer Simone De Beauvoir (1949/1964), was published in the United States in 1953, two years before Clara presented this talk at the White Institute. The phrase “women's liberation,” later adopted by the more radical wing of the feminist movement, was first used in this book. As I read Clara's history of the Institute,

I was struck by her use of the word “liberal,” which she used to refer to herself and her colleagues. She and her cohort were more “liberal,” she repeats. Indeed, they were more liberal not only in psychoanalytic theory but in their intimate lives, which were expansive and unconventional.

Between 1938