The history of the relationship between psychoanalysis and feminist thought is traced. The authors argue that the history of this relationship can be divided into three paradigmatic or generational stages. Beginning in the 1920's a “Dissent” period developed from within psychoanalysis itself in the writings of Horney and Thompson. After World War II, a “Rejection” period began with De Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) and continued through the early 1970's. National differences between Britain, France, and the United States are discussed. In the mid-1970's the work of Mitchell, Rubin, and Chodorow ushered in an “Appropriation” period in which the dominant strains of feminist thought no longer reject psychoanalysis as unredeemably misogynist. The authors argue that contemporary reassessments of the relationship signify the development of a fourth generation: a critique in which “subaltern” groups previously ignored in psychoanalytic feminism have protested the absence of race, class, and sexuality distinctions in past theoretical developments.