You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This clearly written, clinically useful book consists of 14 separate essays on women's developmental and clinical issues. The essays range over early development, multigenerational dynamics, hysteria, depression, dependency, dynamics of language, sex-role stereotypes, and treatment implications. There are several chapters that include detailed case material illustrating particular theoretical approaches.
Lerner is a distinguished feminist psychoanalyst and this book provides an interesting historical perspective on feminist psychoanalytic theory. The essays were written over a period of 15 years. The earliest essays were written in 1974 and the most recent in 1988. Part 1 of the book includes four chapters on early development. These chapters discuss Freudian theories of women and point out the linear, polarized limits of this theory. For example, penis envy, if perceived as anatomical envy, limits exploration of many other meanings. A second example is that the traditional family placed the mother in an omnipotent position with her children, leading to fears as well as denial of her power. This linear viewpoint does not acknowledge the importance of the father, the extended family, or the socio-economic environment.
Part 2 is entitled “Female Psychology of Psychotherapy.” The chapters are lively, filled with case material and deal with common clinical complaints, the dynamics of women, and nodal transition points, such as the birth of the first child, though there is little about older theories in this section. A particularly useful clinical essay is chapter 9, “The Giving Therapist and the Female Patient.” It describes problems that can ensue if therapists are “too” helpful to female patients. I will elaborate on this chapter to exemplify the clinical usefulness of this book. If a therapist is “giving” a patient's growth can be blocked and the therapist may participate in patterns that maintain the symptomatology for which the patient seeks help. Lerner gives two ca