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Of the four psychoanalysts studied by Janet Sayers (1991) in her recent work—Karen Horney, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and Helene Deutsch— it is clear that the last is perhaps the least understood and the most underrated of her colleagues. It becomes equally clear, however, as one delves into the work of this highly creative thinker that her writing contributed significantly to both the theory and the practice of psychoanalysis.
In Psychoanalysis of the Sexual Functions of Women, written in 1925, we are at the formative stage in Helene Deutsch's thinking. Despite the newness of the subject matter—psychoanalysts had begun to study female sexuality seriously in the 1920s—the work has been criticized both by Freudians and by feminists. The followers of Freud believe that Deutsch, one of his early analysands, deviated too sharply from orthodoxy, whereas contemporary analysts view her work as sexist and antiquated, too tied to her mentor and former analyst. Nevertheless, although one could argue that Psychoanalysis of the Sexual Functions of Women does not present a completely enlightened view of female sexuality, it does begin to examine this all too neglected area of inquiry, which has only recently become legitimated through the work of such feminist-oriented analysts as Nancy Chodorow, Jessica Benjamin, and Darlene Ehrenberg, among others. It is perhaps for this theoretical legacy that Deutsch's work remains an important text in the history of psychoanalysis.
Deutsch's approach to the psychoanalytic study of the sexual functions of women is essentially developmental. Beginning with female infantile sexuality, each chapter focuses on a particular period in a woman's development with specific emphasis on sexuality.