Gender and Psychoanalytic Method

The relation between anatomically fixed endogenous influences of sexuality, on the one hand, and gender in intrapsychic and interpersonal relations, on the other, were made central to the discussion in this panel, mainly attended by women. Four panellists and a discussant were chosen to explore some of the complex relationships between sex and gender in psychoanalytic method. All of them agreed that scientific investigation in this field is lacking, but also that the existing research is not being studied as it should be in order for its findings to be absorbed and utilised. All the panellists shared the view that it was likely that much psychoanalytic theory evolved as a countertransferential defence against threatening unconscious material.

The Chair, Joan Raphael-Leff, opened the panel by stating that women have always been ‘at the “navel” of psychoanalytic thinking as well as early clinical work’. However, she argued that over the years psychoanalytic theory has maintained a precarious balance between the idea of psychic bisexuality (quantitatively expressed in differing saturation of traits across the sexes) and the qualitatively different experiences of each sex. A tension that teeters between fluidity of symbolic interpretation of anatomical ‘bedrock’ and fixity of sex-specific endogenous influences—both of which structure (and are structured by) unconscious conceptualisation of the body and self in childhood sexual development and adult reproduction.

As Chair of the IPA Committee of Women and Psychoanalysis (COWAP), she illustrated the great interest in the work of this group, which, although it came into existence only three years ago, has already managed to organise twelve well-attended conferences in this field of research.

The first panellist, Irene Matthis from Sweden, COWAP Co-ordinator for Northern Europe, prepared the stage for the discussion with her paper ‘Does gender matter?’. For ease of communication she proposed to use the term ‘gender’ for the ps