Unlike many Freudian critiques, Ms Brickman deftly balances her call for reconstruction with a valorizing of the revolutionary and emancipatory aspects of Freud's thinking.
However, in her deconstruction of Freud's theories of the unconscious Ms Brickman uncovers an emancipatory potential in Freud's thinking.
Furthermore, for Ms Brickman the formation of subjectivity, and the requisite repudiations by the ego, will vary based on culture and historical locations.
Ms Brickman demonstrates how Freud situates dependency and femininity as indicative of an inferior past.
For Ms Brickman many later theoretical developments in psychoanalysis do provide antidotes to these problematics.