Psychoanalysis and Feminism. Juliet Mitchell. New York:  Pantheon Books. 1974.  xxiii + 456 pp.

This book is a refreshing counterthrust to currently fashionable attacks on Freud. It is written by a knowledgeable London-based feminist, a teacher of English literature who is an editor of the New Left Review and an extensive lecturer on women and liberation. Its thesis is that feminist rejection of Freudian theory is fatal to the women's movement. Maintaining that the roots of female oppression must be understood before a solution can be found, the author makes the crucial observation that Freud accurately described—but never prescribed—feminine and cultural realities that still exist in altered form. She urges deeper understanding and acceptance, and stresses that this is only possible through a grasp of fundamental Freudian concepts of unconscious mental life and the meaning of human sexuality. Presenting a documented analysis of Freud's formulations, Mitchell explores his insights into the interdependence of culture and the values ascribed to sexual difference.

The obverse theories of Wilhelm Reich, R. D. Laing and the major feminist writers are assessed in depth. Reich and Laing are credited with providing much needed phenomenological descriptions of social realities. De Beauvoir, Friedan, Figes, Greer, Firestone and Millett are credited with launching justified attacks on the popularized version of Freud