Who's That Girl? Who's That Boy? : Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory

by Layton, Lynne

• ISBN13: 9780765701824
• ISBN10: 0765701820
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-06-01
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc

Summary

Postmodern lenses reveal that categories are socially constructed and psychologically constricting -- that the notion of a fixed core identity is imaginary or fictive and inherently oppressive in denying fluidity. But what about Winnicott's true self, Kohut's cohesive self? In the case of gender, is the claim to fluidity pathological? How can the clinician distinguish between the fluidity born of trauma and characterized by splitting, and the flexible capacity to try on identities? These are the questions Lynne Layton grapples with in her remarkable struggle to mediate between relational and postmodern theories. Informed by first-rate scholarship, the ideas (poststructuralism) and popular icons (Madonna) that define contemporary culture mingle synergistically with a powerfully concerned clinical sensibility.

Author Biography

Lynne Layton is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School and teaches and supervises psychology interns at Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center.