Showing posts with label Feminist Psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feminist Psychology. Show all posts
Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the École Freudienne
Hedda Bolgar, a practicing psychoanalyst until days before her death at the age of 103
Hedda Bolgar (August 19, 1909 – May 13, 2013) was a psychologist and psychoanalyst who saw 20 patients a week up until days before her death at the age of 103. She studied at the University of Vienna and was the last living psychologist to have attended Sigmund Freud’s lectures. Hedda fled Europe for the United States in 1938, the day the Third Reich annexed Austria.
Her husband passed away in 1973 after 33 years of marriage. One year later, in 1974, Bolgar founded the Wright Institute in Los Angeles, a nonprofit mental health training and service center that includes the Hedda Bolgar Psychotherapy Clinic, which treats people who can't afford quality mental health services elsewhere.
She served on several boards of organizations, gave talks on psychoanalysis, feminism and aging and in recent years combined political activism with psychology.
She specialized in treating people in their 70s and 80s who were struggling with the aging process. Hedda became computer savvy at the age of 100 and sent e-mails, did extensive Online research and even taught a course via Skype.
Her husband passed away in 1973 after 33 years of marriage. One year later, in 1974, Bolgar founded the Wright Institute in Los Angeles, a nonprofit mental health training and service center that includes the Hedda Bolgar Psychotherapy Clinic, which treats people who can't afford quality mental health services elsewhere.
She served on several boards of organizations, gave talks on psychoanalysis, feminism and aging and in recent years combined political activism with psychology.
She specialized in treating people in their 70s and 80s who were struggling with the aging process. Hedda became computer savvy at the age of 100 and sent e-mails, did extensive Online research and even taught a course via Skype.
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| Hedda Bolgar at 99 in the garden of her Brentwood home. She continued to see psychoanalysis patients until a few weeks before her death on at 103. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) |
Quotes
"The day the Nazis came to Vienna, I left. I had been very active in anti-Nazi politics and it really wasn't safe for me to stay. They came in on a Sunday and I decided Sunday was a good time to leave because on Monday they'd start working. They'd probably find the person who wrote those terrible articles about them pretty quickly."
"There was a war, and I had vanilla ice cream for lunch."
"Women must be agents of their own lives. They must not be dependent on someone else to provide for them."
"I started a lot of things at 65."
See also
Helene Deutsch - The First Psychoanalyst to Specialize in Women
Helene Deutsch (October 9, 1884 – March 29, 1982) was one of the most prominent female leaders in psychoanalysis. She was the first woman to lead Sigmund Freud’s Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and she contributed significantly to theory on the psychology of women that expanded the purview of Freud’s male-dominant ideas about women.
Deutsch was born on October 9, 1884, in Przemysla, Poland. Although formal education for women was not possible in late 19th century Poland, Deutsch received private tutoring which enabled her to enroll at the University of Vienna in Austria. Wanting at first to become a lawyer like her father, she considered herself a leader in female liberation. In the early 20th century, medicine was still an exceptional field for women; only seven women entered medical school at the University of Vienna when she was admitted in 1907. After reading Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, she became interested in psychoanalysis. She was impressed by Freud’s theory of infantile sexuality and the unconscious and also his protests against society.
In April 1912, Helene married Felix Deutsch. Following the outbreak of the Great War, Helene experienced the first of many miscarriages. In The Psychology of Women, Helene discussed the concept of spontaneous abortion and miscarriage as a result of psychological factors, with a critical factor involving the 'pregnant woman's unconscious rejection of an identification with her own mother.'
In 1916, Helene sought admittance to Freud's infamous Wednesday night meetings of Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. As a condition of her acceptance, Helene had to comment on Lou Andreas-Salomé's paper, 'Vaginal and anal.' Deutsch joined the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1918 and became its director in 1924.
In 1919, under Freud's supervision, Helene began analyzing her first patient, Viktor Tausk, while at the same time Freud was analyzing Helene. After three months, upon Freud's request, Helene terminated Tausk's sessions. During her sessions with Freud, Helene reported 'falling in love with Freud.' She often felt herself to be Freud's daughter, claiming that Freud had inspired and released her talents. Helene claimed, however, that Freud tended to focus "too much on her identification with her father" and her affair with Lieberman. In one analysis with Freud, Helene dreamt that she had both female and male organs. Through analysis with Freud, she discovered that her personality was largely determined by her "childhood wish to be simultaneously [her] father's prettiest daughter and cleverest son." After one year, Freud terminated Helene's analytic sessions, to instead work with the Wolf Man. Helene nevertheless was a brilliant clinician, who stood up to Freud and got away with it when she 'disagreed with him about her patients.'
In 1935, Helene emigrated her family from Vienna to Boston, Massachusetts, where she continued to work as a psychoanalyst until her death.
'Her best known clinical concept was that of the "as if" personality, a notion that allowed her to spotlight the origin of women's particular ability to identify with others'.
In a 1942 article, she wrote:
In Freud's Women, Lisa Appignanesi has written:
Helene Deutsche, who was to make her name with her writings on female sexuality became paradoxically something of an Aunt Sally in feminist circles...her name tarnished with the brush of a "misogynist" Freud whose servile disciple she is purported to be'. In 1925 she 'became the first psychoanalysts to publish a book on the psychology of women'; and according to Paul Roazen, the 'interest she and Karen Horney showed in this subject prompted Freud, who did not like to be left behind, to write a number of articles on women himself'. In his 1931 article on "Female Sexuality", Freud wrote approvingly of 'Helene Deutsch's latest paper, on feminine masochism and its relation to frigidity (1930), in which she also recognises the girl's phallic activity and the intensity of her attachment to her mother'.
In 1944-5, Deutsche published her two-volume work, The Psychology of Women, on the 'psychological development of the female...Volume 1 deals with girlhood, puberty, and adolescence. Volume 2 deals with motherhood in a variety of aspects, including adoptive mothers, unmarried mothers, and stepmothers'. Mainstream opinion saw the first volume as 'a very sensitive book by an experienced psychoanalyst....Volume II, Motherhood, is equally valuable'. It was, however, arguably 'Deutsch's eulogy of motherhood which made her so popular...in the "back-to-the-home" 1950s and unleashed the feminist backlash against her in the next decades' — though she was also seen by the feminists as 'the reactionary apologist of female masochism, echoing a catechism which would make of woman a failed man, a devalued and penis-envying servant of the species'.
As time permits a more nuanced, post-feminist view of Freud, feminism and Deutsch, so too one can appreciate that her central book 'is replete with sensitive insight into the problems women confront at all stages of their lives'. Indeed it has been claimed of Deutsch that 'the ruling concerns of her life bear a striking resemblance to those of women who participated in the second great wave of feminism in the 1970s: early rebellion...struggle for independence and education...conflict between the demands of career and family, ambivalence over motherhood, split between sexual and maternal feminine identities'. In the same way, one may see that 'to cap the parallel, Deutsch's psychoanalytic preoccupations were with the key moments of female sexuality: menstruation, defloration, intercourse, pregnancy, infertility, childbirth, lactation, the mother-child relation, menopause...the underlying agenda of any contemporary women's magazine — an agenda which her writings helped in some measure to create'
After 1950, Helene Deutsch began to say that she regretted being known primarily for her work with women’s psychology. At this time, Deutsch began to turn her attention back to men’s psychology and narcissism in both sexes. Over time, she became increasingly devoted to the study of egoism and narcissism, thereby abandoning her lifelong study of feminism.
Helene Deutsch died at the age of 97 on 29 March 1982 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her contributions had an impact not only on the development of American psychiatry, but also on the future of women in medicine, psychology and other careers.
In her biography, Paul Roazen writes:
Deutsch was born on October 9, 1884, in Przemysla, Poland. Although formal education for women was not possible in late 19th century Poland, Deutsch received private tutoring which enabled her to enroll at the University of Vienna in Austria. Wanting at first to become a lawyer like her father, she considered herself a leader in female liberation. In the early 20th century, medicine was still an exceptional field for women; only seven women entered medical school at the University of Vienna when she was admitted in 1907. After reading Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, she became interested in psychoanalysis. She was impressed by Freud’s theory of infantile sexuality and the unconscious and also his protests against society.
In April 1912, Helene married Felix Deutsch. Following the outbreak of the Great War, Helene experienced the first of many miscarriages. In The Psychology of Women, Helene discussed the concept of spontaneous abortion and miscarriage as a result of psychological factors, with a critical factor involving the 'pregnant woman's unconscious rejection of an identification with her own mother.'
In 1916, Helene sought admittance to Freud's infamous Wednesday night meetings of Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. As a condition of her acceptance, Helene had to comment on Lou Andreas-Salomé's paper, 'Vaginal and anal.' Deutsch joined the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1918 and became its director in 1924.
In 1919, under Freud's supervision, Helene began analyzing her first patient, Viktor Tausk, while at the same time Freud was analyzing Helene. After three months, upon Freud's request, Helene terminated Tausk's sessions. During her sessions with Freud, Helene reported 'falling in love with Freud.' She often felt herself to be Freud's daughter, claiming that Freud had inspired and released her talents. Helene claimed, however, that Freud tended to focus "too much on her identification with her father" and her affair with Lieberman. In one analysis with Freud, Helene dreamt that she had both female and male organs. Through analysis with Freud, she discovered that her personality was largely determined by her "childhood wish to be simultaneously [her] father's prettiest daughter and cleverest son." After one year, Freud terminated Helene's analytic sessions, to instead work with the Wolf Man. Helene nevertheless was a brilliant clinician, who stood up to Freud and got away with it when she 'disagreed with him about her patients.'
In 1935, Helene emigrated her family from Vienna to Boston, Massachusetts, where she continued to work as a psychoanalyst until her death.
The "as-if" personality
'Her best known clinical concept was that of the "as if" personality, a notion that allowed her to spotlight the origin of women's particular ability to identify with others'.
In a 1942 article, she wrote:
“My only reason for using so unoriginal a label for the type of person I wish to present is that every attempt to understand the way of feeling and manner of life of this type forces on the observer the inescapable impression that the individual’s whole relationship to life has something about it which is lacking in genuineness and yet outwardly runs along ‘as if’ it were complete. Even the layman sooner or later inquires, after meeting such an ‘as if’ patient: what is wrong with him, or her?”
In Freud's Women, Lisa Appignanesi has written:
"her memoir sometimes fills one with the sense that she experienced her own existence to be an "as if" — living her life first "as if" a socialist in her identification with Lieberman; "as if" a conventional wife with Felix; "as if" a mother...then "as if" a psychoanalyst in the identification with Freud."
On Woman
Helene Deutsche, who was to make her name with her writings on female sexuality became paradoxically something of an Aunt Sally in feminist circles...her name tarnished with the brush of a "misogynist" Freud whose servile disciple she is purported to be'. In 1925 she 'became the first psychoanalysts to publish a book on the psychology of women'; and according to Paul Roazen, the 'interest she and Karen Horney showed in this subject prompted Freud, who did not like to be left behind, to write a number of articles on women himself'. In his 1931 article on "Female Sexuality", Freud wrote approvingly of 'Helene Deutsch's latest paper, on feminine masochism and its relation to frigidity (1930), in which she also recognises the girl's phallic activity and the intensity of her attachment to her mother'.
As time permits a more nuanced, post-feminist view of Freud, feminism and Deutsch, so too one can appreciate that her central book 'is replete with sensitive insight into the problems women confront at all stages of their lives'. Indeed it has been claimed of Deutsch that 'the ruling concerns of her life bear a striking resemblance to those of women who participated in the second great wave of feminism in the 1970s: early rebellion...struggle for independence and education...conflict between the demands of career and family, ambivalence over motherhood, split between sexual and maternal feminine identities'. In the same way, one may see that 'to cap the parallel, Deutsch's psychoanalytic preoccupations were with the key moments of female sexuality: menstruation, defloration, intercourse, pregnancy, infertility, childbirth, lactation, the mother-child relation, menopause...the underlying agenda of any contemporary women's magazine — an agenda which her writings helped in some measure to create'
After 1950, Helene Deutsch began to say that she regretted being known primarily for her work with women’s psychology. At this time, Deutsch began to turn her attention back to men’s psychology and narcissism in both sexes. Over time, she became increasingly devoted to the study of egoism and narcissism, thereby abandoning her lifelong study of feminism.
Helene Deutsch died at the age of 97 on 29 March 1982 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her contributions had an impact not only on the development of American psychiatry, but also on the future of women in medicine, psychology and other careers.
In her biography, Paul Roazen writes:
"Helene Deutsch was an independent-minded woman, who wanted to assert a viewpoint different from that of either traditional psychiatry or conventional analytic wisdom.... Her whole life meant a challenge to the prevailing standards of her society”
Books by Helene Deutsch
- The Psychology Of Women - A Psychoanalytic Interpretation - Vol I ~ Free Online
Books on Helene Deutsch
See also:
Karen Horney, a Leading Psychoanalyst and Founder of Feminist Psychology
Karen Horney was a pioneering theorist in personality, psychoanalysis, and her critique of some of Sigmund Freud's views led to the founding of feminist psychology.
Karen Horney was born in Blankenese, Germany, on September 16, 1885. As a teenager, she suffered her first episode of depression, a challenge she faced several times throughout her life. She attended medical school and began studying psychoanalysis. Horney moved to the United States in the 1930s and wrote two influential and controversial works, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time and New Ways in Psychoanalysis, which deviated sharply from Sigmund Freud's work.
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| The term feminist psychology was originally coined by Karen Horney. |
In her book, Feminine Psychology, which is a collection of articles Horney wrote on the subject from 1922–1937, she addresses previously held beliefs about women, relationships, and the effect of society on female psychology. Horney developed this form of psychology specifically in response to Sigmund Freud’s theory of “penis envy”.
Horney died on December 4, 1952, in New York City. The Karen Horney Foundation was established in New York, followed by the Karen Horney Clinic in 1955. Prominent in her own time, Horney has remained influential among psychiatric professionals and therapists, as well as scholars of gender and feminism, over the decades since her death.
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| Psychoanalyst Karen Horney, New York, 1946 by Lotte Jacobi |
Books by Karen Horney
Books on Karen Horney
See also
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| Bartleby, the Scrivener: “I would prefer not to.” |
