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Could Freud, and subsequent psychoanalytic theorists, have been as wrong about the psychology of men as they were about women? The organizing premise of this useful new collection of essays (edited by Bruce Reis and Robert Grossmark) is that psychoanalytic gender theory, including the explosion of new gender theory over the past 40 years, has never adequately addressed the topics of masculinity and male heterosexuality. This volume makes a compelling case for that premise, and at the same time represents a promising start in addressing the deficiencies in existing theory.
The text covers considerable territory. The topics covered in the 12 chapters (written by a diverse array of theorists, some very well known, others relative newcomers) range from Fathers and Daughters (Harris) to managing countertransferences related to sexual morality (Hirsch), with many fascinating stops in between. Most of the authors are clinicians, and the essays provide rich and often detailed clinical material. In my reading, two themes emerged as threads connecting several of the essays. First, several authors (notably, Reis, Grossmark, and Kaftal) argue convincingly that much feminist psychoanalytic theory has contained an unfortunate and ironic sexism in regard to men. Too often in feminist accounts, men appear as caricatures, lacking the sense of nuance, complexity, diversity, and empathy devoted to female psychology. In such accounts, Freud's developmental models, descriptions of hegemonic masculinity, and examples of superficial male-male relationships, are presented as not just norms but as definitive statements on male psychology. These authors (along with a fascinating chapter by Cornell about his own experiences in analysis with a male analyst) provide a corrective, highlighting the range, depth, fluidity, and mystery of male subjectivities. In a chapter on doing therapy with poor African American men, Adams adds to this mix a useful model for integrating the sociocultural and psyc