Feminism and Modern Psychoanalysis: A Response to Feminist Critics of Psychoanalysis

The last fifteen years have seen vastly expanded efforts by women to assert identity as complete and separate individuals. Some women are able to take advantage of the greater opportunities becoming available, while others remain immobilized by feelings of despair, inadequacy, or indiscriminate rage against the world (Symonds, 1974). Feminists have increasingly questioned the ability of social institutions to relate to these difficulties. Within this context, psychoanalysis has come under strong attack in the popular media and the mental health profession. Many critics feel that difficult questions remain unanswered: Is psychoanalysis an outmoded process, unable to respond to the views and goals of contemporary women? Is the theoretical base of psychoanalysis essentially antifemale, working against women's drive for growth and self-realization?

Faced with such challenges to psychoanalysis, the author, as a woman and a modern psychoanalyst, felt the need to respond. Theoretically and in practice, does modern psychoanalysis offer something of particular value to women? Does modern psychoanalysis differ in ways significant to feminists from classical psychoanalysis as depicted in the feminist literature? The purpose of this paper is to focus on the contributions of modern psychoanalysis within the context