Psychoanalysis And Feminism A Radical Reassessment Of Freudian Psychoanalysis

by Mitchell, Juliet; Mishra, Sangay K.

• ISBN13: 9780465046089
• ISBN10: 0465046088
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-09-11
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

In 1974, at the height of the women's movement, Juliet Mitchell shocked her fellow feminists by challenging the entrenched belief that Freud was the enemy. She argued that a rejection of psychoanalysis as bourgeois and patriarchal was fatal for feminism. However it may have been used, she pointed out, psychoanalysis is not a recommendationfora patriarchal society, but rather an analysisofone. "If we are interested in understanding and challenging the oppression of women," she says, "we cannot afford to neglect psychoanalysis." In an introduction written specially for this reissue, Mitchell reflects on the changing relationship between these two major influences on twentieth-century thought. Original and provocative,Psychoanalysis and Feminismremains an essential component of the feminist canon.

Author Biography

Juliet Mitchell, the author of Psychoanalysis and Feminism, is currently a visiting professor in Comparative Literature at Yale University, where she is also a Fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center. She is a university lecturer in Gender and Society at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Jesus College. She lives in London and Cambridge. Juliet Mitchell, psychoanalyst and author of Mad Men and Medusas (see page 100), is currently A.D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University. She is a university lecturer in Gender and Society at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Jesus College.

Table of Contents

Introduction, 1999	xv
PART ONE PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FEMININITY
Freud: The Making of a Lady, I
Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious	5	(11)
Sexuality	16	(14)
Narcissism	30	(12)
Masculinity, Femininity and Bisexuality	42	(11)
Pre-Oedipal Sexuality	53	(8)
The Oedipus Complex	61	(13)
The Castration Complex	74	(21)
Freud: The Making of a Lady, II
The Castration Complex and Penis-Envy	95	(6)
Faeces -- Penis -- Baby	101	(4)
The Clitoris and the Vagina	105	(4)
The Pre-Oedipal Mother and the Oedipal Father	109	(4)
The Marks of Womanhood	113	(30)
Freud, The Freudians and the Psychology of Women	121	(16)
PART TWO Section I RADICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY AND FREUD
Wilhelm Reich
R. D. Laing
Wilhelm Reich: Sexual Politics, I
Political Psychotherapy and Pre-war Berlin	137	(6)
A Brief Biographical Background	143	(10)
Reich and Psychoanalysis	153	(12)
Reich's `Character Analysis'	165	(5)
Psychoanalysis and Sexuality	170	(4)
The Oedipus Complex and Family Politics	174	(8)
Psychoanalysis and Marxism	182	(6)
Sex-economy, Vegetotherapy and Orgonomy	188	(9)
Wilhelm Reich: Sexual Politics, II
Today and Yesterday	197	(5)
Sex and Society	202	(5)
Politics and the Family	207	(8)
Politics within the Family	215	(3)
A Woman's World	218	(14)
R. D. Laing: The Family of Man, I
Social Psychotherapy and Post-war London	227	(5)
A `Science of Persons'	232	(12)
The Various Scientific Methods	244	(5)
Dialectics and Totalizations	249	(4)
Laing and Psychoanalysis	253	(15)
The Schizophrenic World	268	(9)
R. D. Laing: The Family of Man, II
Rebels with a Cause	277	(8)
Leaving Home and Letting Go: The Feminine Predicament	285	(20)
PART TWO Section II FEMINISM AND FREUD
Transatlantic Psychoanalysis	295	(10)
The Feminists
Simone de Beauvoir: Freud and the Second Sex	305	(14)
Betty Friedan: The Freudian Mystique	319	(9)
Eva Figes: Freud's Patriarchal Attitudes	328	(12)
Germaine Greer and Freud's Female Eunuch	340	(6)
Shulamith Firestone: Freud Feminized	346	(5)
Kate Millett: Freud, Facts and Fantasies	351	(66)
Epilogue	356	(8)
CONCLUSION: THE HOLY FAMILY AND FEMININITY
I The Holy Family
1 When Did It All Start?	364	(6)
2 Patriarchy, Kinship and Women as Exchange Objects	370	(7)
3 The Oedipus Complex and Patriarchal Society	377	(5)
4 The Different Self, the Phallus and the Father	382	(19)
II Femininity
5 A Woman's Place	401	(6)
6 The Cultural Revolution	407	(10)
Appendix: Psychoanalysis and Vienna at the Turn of the Century	417	(19)
Index	436