This chapter serves two purposes. It comments on Kassoff's psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a lesbian patient, and it discusses the historical and cultural position of lesbians within psychoanalysis. We felt that offering only a discussion of Kassoff's case would be insufficient. Because this is self psychology's first real dialogue about female homosexuality, we felt that her case required placement within its wider psychosocial context. To discuss an analytic treatment of lesbians without this view would be like discussing the psychodynamics of gender without looking at the culture of sexism.

I will begin by offering a few comments on Kassoff's interesting work with her lesbian patient, Paula. First, her work is a rich example of how self psychology can be successfully blended with cutting edge analytic feminist theory and new perspectives on lesbian development. As I will discuss later, Kassoff's awareness of the psychodynamics of cultural