Using Melanie Klein
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
The relationship between feminism and psychoanalytical theory has been stormy. Feminists of all stripes have criticized Freud and his followers for many different aspects of psychoanalytical thought and practice. While some of these criticisms are relatively local in scope, concerning features of psychoanalysis that can be regarded as inessential or transient, others are directed against more central theoretical commitments. The first category includes examples such as the sexist expectations manifested by Freud in his analyses of female patients: the case history documenting Freud's treatment of 'Dora', for example, has been discussed at length by feminist critics. More theoretical criticisms include the charges of false universalism, ahistoricism (in particular the reification of the nuclear family), heterosexism, biologism and phallocentrism. The aim, also, of psychoanalytical therapy has been criticized as reactionary, insofar as it is thought to divert patients from a political understanding of their discontents to the 'individualist' solution of personal adjustment to the status quo.
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