I’m very pleased to let you know that on March 14, 2014, I’ll be presenting a TRISP workshop that I’m calling, “If Freud Were a Woman: Gender, Trauma, and the Ethics of Care. “ I’ll ask participants to join me in a thought experiment that imagines how psychoanalysis would have been different if Freud had been born a woman.
Carol Gilligan, a feminist theorist whose 1982 book, In a Different Voice, exposed the masculine biases underlying Kohlberg’s studies, has called our attention to the fact that women’s voices, in contrast to men’s, are often marked by tentativeness and uncertainty. In contrast to boys and men whose moral judgments are guided by what they believe to be universal codes of behavior and considerations of justice, girls and women tend to be guided by an “ethics of care;” relationships are their central concern. If you agree with Gilligan, how do you think Freud, the woman, might have developed psychoanalysis?
This is just one of the questions that we can bat around at my workshop. Please join me. I think you’ll have fun playing with some stimulating ideas.
Posted by Doris Brothers
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Great idea, Doris! I was tempted to say “awesome”, though that does does female-like, doesn’t it. Psychoanalysis these days has many forms, depending on the orientation. Some include lots of listening: is that more female-like? Others seem to include more confrontation: is that more male-like? Lots to think about. Thanks for getting us to wonder.
I think that lots of men listen, some even assuming the remote stance of a traditional Freudian analyst, as do some women. But perhaps the various theoretical orientations do feel more congruent with either a stereotypically masculine or feminine attitude. Excellent observation and well worth discussing during the workshop!
Hi Doris,
I love the provocative/evocative title, If Freud were a woman. It immediately brings into bold relief what Psychoanalysis has consistently ignored: the fact that the subjectivity of the analyst matters and gender is certainly a very important dimension of the subjectivity of the therapist and will therefore also impact the theorizing. I also really like the fact that you draw our attention to the idea that an ‘ethics of care’ ought to be central to us as therapists. Its opposite, I presume, would be Freud’s ideal of the analyst as the dispassionate surgeon who carves into his/her patient in order to remove disease. It is the juxtaposition of to care versus to treat.
I assume that’s what you have in mind.
Clearly, where treatment is organized around an ethics of care, patients will feel held and safe and where it is missing, they will feel like objects to be dissected. It would seem though that both tasks are necessary, and maybe that is what you are proposing. Maybe you are suggesting that if Freud were a woman, the emphasis would have been on the ethics of care. And yes, the evolution of psychoanalysis would look very different. My concern is that by labeling this as feminine are we not perpetuating the gender stereotyping and bifurcation that we seek to overcome? Are not Ferenczi, Balint, Winnicott, Loewald and Kohut male exponents of an ethics of care and Helene Deutsch, Melanie Klein, Edith Jacobson and maybe even Jessica Benjamin female exponents of the ethos to treat?
Food for thought.
Peter
Hi Peter,
I love what you say about an ethics of care!
I think that it is certainly a danger to label a theoretical orientation as male or female but it seems to me that both sexes may express aspects of what has come to be viewed as masculinity and femininity. These stereotypical notions constitute gender. In Freud’s day the gender divide was more rigidly maintained than it is today, at least in our neck of the woods. Much more to say about this, don’t you agree?
Absolutely Doris, there is more to say about this. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts and to a spirited discussion.
Peter
Thank you, Doris, for a thoughtful and provocative paper at last night’s TRISP workshop. And thanks to all who attended for the stimulating discussion we shared together. I look forward to our next occasion when we can keep the ideas flowing.
I join Aviva in thanking Doris for her provocative and thought provoking paper and the workshop participants for their engaging contributions on the topic of uncertainty and the ethics of care.
It was great to participate in this discussion and feel the excitement of everybody involved when learning about ideas that are central to the intersubjective self psychological perspective.
I am looking forward to more opportunities to discuss our work in those terms and hear the thoughts and ideas that are articulated by the participants in our workshops.
Peter Zimmermann