Gotowa bibliografia na temat „Feminist psychoanalysis”

This essay engages in a debate with Nancy Fraser and Dorothy Leland concerning the contribution of Lacanian-inspired psychoanalytic feminism to feminist theory and practice. Teresa Brennan's analysis of the impasse in psychoanalysis and feminism and Judith Butler's proposal for a radically democratic feminism are employed in examining the issues at stake. I argue, with Brennan, that the impasse confronting psychoanalysis and feminism is the result of different conceptions of the relationship between the psychical and the social. I suggest Lacanian-inspired feminist conceptions are useful and deserve our consideration.

Freudian psychoanalysis has long been a matter of debate among feminists, and usually criticized for biological determinism. While discussing the Freudian framework, feminists have also been discussing how to define a female subject and the age old “equality vs. difference” discussion. This study discusses critical feminist responses to Freud which demonstrate the intricacies of the “equality vs. difference” debate amongst different strands of feminist theory. This article analyses three diverse lines of argumentation regarding psychoanalysis and the equality vs. difference debate by focusing on the works of Luce Irigaray, Simone de Beauvoir and Juliet Mitchell. Beauvoir and Irigaray both criticize the Freudian approach for taking “the male” as the real, essential subject. However, whereas Beauvoir sides with an egalitarian feminism, Irigaray defends underlining the difference of female sexuality. Juliet Mitchell, on the other hand, defends Freudian psychoanalysis through the argument that psychoanalysis actually offers a way to understand how the unconscious carries the heritage of historical and social reality. Accordingly, what Freudian psychoanalysis does is to analyze, rather than to legitimize, the basis of the patriarchal order in the unconscious.

After a discussion of the impact of psychoanalysis on psychological thinking about personality theory and the changes that have been taking place within psychoanalytic theory about women, eight criteria arising out of feminist therapy theory are stated. These criteria represent suggested minimum conditions that a woman-based theory of female development and personality needs to fulfill. Freudian theory, current psychoanalytic theory, and several feminist theories are then evaluated in light of the stated criteria. The author concludes that feminists have arrived at some degree of general agreement about personality theory, although they have often arrived at their specific approaches via diverse theoretical routes.

Since the 19th century, feminists have criticized the mental health establishment and its treatment of women. Issues include the sexist use of psychoanalytic concepts and psychiatric diagnoses, the misuse of medication, and sexual misconduct in therapy. Feminists have also called attention to psychological problems arising from gender inequality in everyday life. Physical and sexual abuse of women is of special concern. Feminist innovations in therapy include consciousness-raising, sex-role resocialization, and new approaches to psychoanalysis and family therapy. We urge feminists to develop a fuller understanding of gender and power, and to use this knowledge to challenge the established theory and practice of clinical psychology.

Analyzing conceptualizations of motherhood in 1980s West German psychoanalytic debates, this article argues that, in the wake of what can be termed as a ‘turn to motherhood,’ German psychoanalysis saw an unprecedented politicization of motherhood that followed from a conjunction of three distinct historical contexts: the integration of feminist theories of subjectivity into the psychoanalytic canon; the belated reception of the British object relations school; and the renewed attempt at grappling with the Nazi past. On the one hand, West German (female) psychoanalysts posited motherhood as a utopian space that allowed for uncorrupted forms of intersubjectivity in the form of an intimate and sexualized mother–child/mother–daughter relationship. On the other hand, and mirroring this ideal, motherhood, if not practiced correctly, could, according to psychoanalytically inspired thinkers in the late 1980s, also be a source of fascism.

The fields of feminism/postfeminism and psychoanalysis/theoretical psychoanalysis share common focal points oriented toward the questions around the gendered subjectivity and the mechanisms which subject the subject and his/her body to the socially accepted/prefered gender standards. Speaking about that, feminism and psychoanalysis, as theoretical strategies, enter into mutual interrelation of both dialogue and tension. Working with some of the basic hypotheses of those disciplines, this paper aims to show the potential of analytical-comparative approach to feminist and psycho?analytic theoretical strategies, accentuating at the same time the importance of their dialogue as the means of better understanding of the femaleness and gender in general in the actual context of living.

Foucault’s remarks concerning psychoanalysis are ambivalent and even prima facie contra-dictory, at times lauding Freud and Lacan as anti-humanists, at others being severely criti-cal of their imbrication within psychiatric power. This has allowed a profusion of interpretations of his position, between so-called ‘Freudo-Foucauldians’ at one extreme and Foucauldians who condemn psychoanalysis as such at the other. In this article, I begin by surveying Foucault’s biographical and theoretical relationship to psychoanalysis and the sec-ondary scholarship on this relationship to date. I pay particular attention to the discussion of the relationship in feminist scholarship and queer theory, and that by psychoanalytic thinkers, as well as attending to the particular focus in the secondary literature on Fou-cault’s late work and his relationship to the figure of Jacques Lacan. I conclude that Fou-cault’s attitude to psychoanalysis varies with context, and that some of his criticisms of psychoanalysis in part reflect an ignorance of the variety of psychoanalytic thought, partic-ularly in its Lacanian form. I thus argue that Foucault sometimes tended to overestimate the extent of the incompatibility of his approach with psychoanalytic ones and that there is ultimately no serious incompatibility there. Rather, psychoanalysis represents a substantively different mode of inquiry to Foucault’s work, which is neither straightforwardly ex-clusive nor inclusive of psychoanalytic insights.

This paper aims to explore Helen Cixous’ postmodernist trends in her formulations of a new form of writing known as ecriture feminine. The paper attempts to validate the view that Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” is regarded as the manifesto of postmodern feminism. This is done by attempting a critical discourse analysis of Cixous' narrative of ecriture feminine. Deploying a multifaceted-framework, ranging from postmodernism to psychoanalysis through poststructuralist theory and semiotics, the study reveals Cixous' metamorphosing and diversified trend of feminist writing that transposes the subversion of patriarchy into a rather bio-textual feminism, known as bisexuality. The paper highlights the significance of Cixous’ essay as a benchmark of postmodern feminism.

The contemporary Women’s Movement has generated major new theories of the social construction of gender and male power. The feminist attack on the masculinist assumptions of cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis and most of the other academic disciplines has raised questions about some basic assumptions of those fields. For example, feminist economists have questioned the public/private split of much of mainstream economics, that ignores the social necessity of women’s unpaid housework and childcare. Feminist psychologists have challenged cognitive and psychoanalytic categories of human moral and gender development arguing that they are biased toward the development of male children rather than female children. Feminist anthropologists have argued that sex/gender systems, based on the male exchange of women in marriage, have socially produced gender differences in sexuality and parenting skills which have perpetuated different historical and cultural forms of male dominance. Feminist philosophers and theorists have suggested that we must reject the idea of a gender-free epistemological standpoint from which to understand the world. Finally radical feminists have argued that the liberal state permits a pornography industry that sexually objectifies women, thus legitimizing male violence against women.

The thesis argues that psychoanalysis is a necessary component of cultural analysis. It is argued that existing syntheses of psychoanalysis and political theories tend to limit the recognition of the relative autonomy of psychic reality by offering accounts of the social determination of subjectivity. The contemporary reappropriation of psychoanalysis by feminist theorists has formulated new explanations of the social position of women as the 'second sex'. The challenge of feminism to traditional theories of culture and society includes questions of how sexual difference informs the transformation of thought into language, how language determines theory, and how theory conceptualises the difference between subjectivity and objectivity. The contradictions within existing syntheses of structuralism, Marxism and feminism are described, and the differences between psychoanalysis and sociology are traced through the the critical reception of Freud's Totem and Taboo by anthropologists. The validity of Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex is explored, and it is suggested that despite the limited acceptance by anthropologists, Totem and Taboo contains a valid theory of the relation of the subject to society. Freud's work is relocated within the paradigm of evolutionary biology to provide a materialist analysis of psychic structure that is not based on linguistics. A study of the origins of language reveals the complexity of the historical factors determining the co-evolution of representation, the maternal function, and the structuration of psychic reality. New discoveries about the pre-Oedipal dyad that underlies the Oedipus complex have shown the effects of infantile dependence and maternal care on adult subjectivity, and it is argued that factors such as the unconscious fear of dependency and of women are of particular significance for feminist thought. It is argued that the theory of pre-Oedipal and prelinguistic subjectivity can make intelligible aspects of ideologies of racism and sexism that are not fully explained by sociological or political theory. The mechanism of projection or projective identification, it is argued, provides a specifically psychoanalytic contribution to existing theories of culture.

This essay analyzes Esther Greenwood’s identity crisis, mental illness, and recovery in Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar (1963) from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective. The purpose is to understand the cultural and psychological mechanisms behind the main character’s situation. Esther is a talented and hardworking student who dreams of a literary career in 1950’s America. At the age of nineteen, events and realizations launch Esther into an identity crisis that leads to severe depression. Why she falls ill, and the nature of her illness and recovery, are up for interpretation. The thesis of this essay is that Esther Greenwood’s identity crisis, mental illness, and recovery can be explained using a feminist interpretation of Freud’s theories of hysteria and melancholia, and the development of the differences between the sexes, which includes the Freudian concepts of castration, bisexuality, and the Oedipus complex.

The canon of Western art history provides a selection of artists that have supposedly made an 'original' contribution to stylistic innovation within the visual arts. Although a process of selection cannot be avoided, this procedure has resulted in a Eurocentric and patriarchal art canon. For example, the Western art canon consists of certain white male artists who are given exclusive authority and are often referred to as the 'fathers of art'. As the status of a 'father of art' pertains to the highest level of achievement within artistic creativity, I argue that this excellence in creativity is based on a gender specific criteria. This issue refers to the patrilineage within Western art history and how this father-son model, in a general sense, excludes women artists from the canon. Further, the very few women included in the art canon are not given the equivalent status as a 'father of art'. I address this patriarchal bias through focussing on the father/daughter relationship as a way of challenging the patrilineage within Western art history’s patrilineage. Through this process of intervention, I position the daughter an assertive figure who directly confronts the fathers of Western art. Within this confrontation, I emphasise that the daughter has an assertive identity that is also beyond the father. On this premise my paper is based on the argument that the application of a father/daughter model, within a metaphorical and mythological sense, is useful in subverting the father figures within Western art history. That is, I construct myself as the metaphorical and mythological daughter of the Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp and the Fluxus artist, Joseph Beuys. As an assertive daughter, I insert myself into the patriarchal framework surrounding these two canonical figures in order to decentre and subvert their authority and phallocentric art practice. It is important to note that both Duchamp and Beuys are addressed as case studies (not as individual arguments) that illustrate the patriarchal constructs of the art canon. Within this premise, I draw upon the female artists Sherrie Levine and Jana Sterbak who directly subvert Western father figures as examples of assertive daughter identities. Within this exploration of the assertive daughter identity, I discuss feminist psychoanalysis (particularly the 'object relations' theorist Nancy Chodorow and the French feminist, Luce Irigaray) in order to offer metaphorical representations of the assertive daughter. These metaphors also assist in subverting the gender (male) specific criteria for creativity under the 'law of the father'.

The canon of Western art history provides a selection of artists that have supposedly made an 'original' contribution to stylistic innovation within the visual arts. Although a process of selection cannot be avoided, this procedure has resulted in a Eurocentric and patriarchal art canon. For example, the Western art canon consists of certain white male artists who are given exclusive authority and are often referred to as the 'fathers of art'. As the status of a 'father of art' pertains to the highest level of achievement within artistic creativity, I argue that this excellence in creativity is based on a gender specific criteria. This issue refers to the patrilineage within Western art history and how this father-son model, in a general sense, excludes women artists from the canon. Further, the very few women included in the art canon are not given the equivalent status as a 'father of art'. I address this patriarchal bias through focussing on the father/daughter relationship as a way of challenging the patrilineage within Western art history's patrilineage. Through this process of intervention, I position the daughter an assertive figure who directly confronts the fathers of Western art. Within this confrontation, I emphasise that the daughter has an assertive identity that is also beyond the father. On this premise my paper is based on the argument that the application of a father/daughter model, within a metaphorical and mythological sense, is useful in subverting the father figures within Western art history. That is, I construct myself as the metaphorical and mythological daughter of the Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp and the Fluxus artist, Joseph Beuys. As an assertive daughter, I insert myself into the patriarchal framework surrounding these two canonical figures in order to decentre and subvert their authority and phallocentric art practice. It is important to note that both Duchamp and Beuys are addressed as case studies (not as individual arguments) that illustrate the patriarchal constructs of the art canon. Within this premise, I draw upon the female artists Sherrie Levine and Jana Sterbak who directly subvert Western father figures as examples of assertive daughter identities. Within this exploration of the assertive daughter identity, I discuss feminist psychoanalysis (particularly the 'object relations' theorist Nancy Chodorow and the French feminist, Luce Irigaray) in order to offer metaphorical representations of the assertive daughter. These metaphors also assist in subverting the gender (male) specific criteria for creativity under the 'law of the father'.
Thesis (Professional Doctorate)
Doctor of Visual Arts (DVA)
Queensland College of Art
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Chapter One of this thesis looks at psychoanalytical object relations theory dealing with early childhood, with an aim to outline the shift that has taken place within critical thinking on personal development--from an emphasis on oedipal relations to the auspicious re-exploration of pre-oedipal states. Here the main theme derives from the paradoxical nature of the human skin, whose fluid sensory and communicative qualities profoundly shape our psychological functioning, and thus ultimately our creation of (gendered) knowledge in all its forms.
Chapter Two seeks to establish some of the possible socio-political implications of a recovered pre-oedipal sensibility, by way of situating the place of the personal within critical discourse--the cross-fertilization of critical theory and self-critical artistic discourses. Using the specific example of film, my central conceit consists in drawing a parallel between the skin and the filmic screen as both being simultaneously introjective and projective liminal membranes.
Chapter Three is a case study of sorts, one which traces the manifestations of a liminal subjectivity during a critical phase in the history of my native Nordic culture--the period of transition between pagan and Christian society. Its spirit is then shown to be alive and well within the ensemble films of Ingmar Bergman, whose work has come to stand as something of an archetype of the Nordic film form.
The second section, PRAXIS, appropriately provides this project's own creative component, a sketch of a film scenario that I hope to one day be able to liberate from the stasis of the written page and project into the uncertain spaces of a theater screen.

In this project, I examine the relationship between female masochism, performance, and spectatorship in Michael Haneke’s film La Pianiste (2001). The film stages a relationship to sexuality that structures the subject’s excruciating negotiations with the other as always mediated by the law, the letter, or the body as instrument, which is allegorized by the protagonist’s occupation as a piano teacher. In my analysis, I identify the ways in which the film paradoxically offers a critique of mediation’s effect on the feminine position while encouraging viewers to confront the possibility that desire is only possible through these mediations. Contributing to feminist theory and psychoanalytic film theory, I foreground the way in which the film’s complex portrayal of female masochism produces indeterminacy via masochistic spectatorship. Ultimately, I argue that the unmarked position of feminine masochism, which is historically, psychoanalytically, and literarily reserved for male subjects, challenges the spectator to take enjoyment into account when approaching mediations of violence and sexuality.

My doctoral thesis focuses on the twentieth-century Scottish writer, Jessie Kesson, examining the effects of the cultural construction of gender from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective. Although my primary focus is on the detrimental effects traditional gender roles have on girls and women, recently published studies claiming that 'masculinity' is in a state of crisis are of particular value to my work. The reasons contemporary critics offer for this 'crisis in masculinity' vary widely. There are those who are convinced that women are to blame for abandoning their traditional roles as wives and mothers and moving too far into areas of society that are traditionally 'male'. This, they believe, results in a 'feminised' society that has an adverse effect on the development and well-being of boys and men. Those who support this argument generally believe that social, emotional and psychological distinctions between the genders are biologically inherent rather than socially constructed, and would prefer to see gender positions polarised rather than assimilated. At the other end of the scale are those who believe that the behaviours associated with traditional 'masculinity' are outmoded, fostering a form of emotional distrophy that is responsible for the increase in male suicide and autistic-like behaviours. Those who support this argument believe that males should develop a new set of behavioural traits more closely aligned to those traditionally thought of as 'feminine': traits like spontaneity, expressiveness, empathy and compassion. I have found the latter arguments exciting on two counts: firstly because an increasing number of male critics are joining female critics in acknowledging that many of the traits and behaviours traditionally associated with 'masculinity' are life-denying for both sexes; secondly, and most importantly, because these critics are echoing the findings of the feminist psychoanalytic critic, Jessica Benjamin, whose work I have found so stimulating. But, where critics have pointed to the problem ('masculine' behaviour) and recommended that it be modified to something more closely resembling 'feminine' behaviour, Benjamin has not only identified the source of the problem, she has developed a revised theory of human development, 'Intersubjectivity', which offers a positive and transformative approach to human behaviour. I examine Benjamin�s theory closely in Chapter Two, and make use of it in succeeding chapters. In May 2000, financed by the Bamforth Scholarship fund (with help from the Humanities Division of the University of Otago), I attended a conference at the University of St Andrews entitled 'Scotland: The Gendered Nation', which gave me a wider view of the concerns of contemporary Scottish writers and scholars. The paper I presented at the conference, "That great brute of a bunion!": the construction of masculinity in Jessie Kesson�s Glitter of Mica�, was published in the Spring 2001 issue of Scottish Studies Review. Following the conference I spent the rest of May in Scotland finding out more about Kesson and her writing under the generous tutelage of Kesson�s biographer, Dr Isobel (Tait) Murray, from the University of Aberdeen. Kesson wrote many plays for the BBC, and I was able to read Dr Murray�s copies of some of these unpublished works in the security of the Kings College Library, along with back copies of North-East Review to which Kesson contributed. In Edinburgh I visited the National Library of Scotland which holds back copies of The Scots Magazine containing pertinent articles by Kesson and her contemporaries. Then I travelled to those parts of North-East Scotland which feature most precisely in Kesson�s life and writing. My Scottish month was invaluable for its insight into the critical literary climate of Scotland, and for allowing me to reach Jessie Kesson imaginatively: through the boarded-up windows of the Orphanage at Skene; by the ruined Cathedral at Elgin; at the top of Our Lady�s Lane; and on the steps of her cottar house at Westertown Farm. [SEE FOOTNOTE] It was a privilege to trace Kesson�s footsteps and then to return to the other side of the world with a much keener sense of her 'place'. I would like to think this has carried over into my work, the structure of which is as follows: Chapter One gives a brief history of Jessie Kesson�s life and writing. Chapter Two focuses on Jessica Benjamin the feminist psychoanalytic critic whose work provides the main theoretical framework for my thesis. Chapter Three considers the expression of female sexuality in the novella Where the Apple Ripens, and the way society conspires to have it diminish rather than enhance a sense of female self-hood. Where the Apple Ripens is not Kesson�s first published work but, because it introduces the central concerns of my thesis through the experiences of an adolescent girl, I have chosen to begin with it rather than with The White Bird Passes and to work towards increasingly complex gender relations in succeeding chapters. In Chapter Four, The White Bird Passes, I look at the way Kesson depicts girls and women as instruments of male sexuality, controlled by a nervous patriarchy whose institutions (family, education, church) take away the promise of her female characters. Chapter Five is centred on The Glitter of Mica, and considers the consequences of a masculinity constructed around the destruction of 'the Mother'. Chapter Six considers the fate of the anonymous young woman in Another Time, Another Place, and examines the conventions of the social order that deny her self-definition. Chapter Seven also examines the social conventions that shape and limit the lives of Kesson�s female characters - this time in a selection of Kesson�s short stories and poems. In Chapter Eight I look at selected writers from the eighteenth to the twentieth-century whose work, in diverse and often contradictory ways, has contributed to an interrogation of gender in Scottish literature. This is not an historical and systematic survey of gender relations in Scotland; it is not even an historical and systematic survey of gender questions in Scottish literature. Rather, it is an impressionistic account of such matters in some selected Scottish literature - selected in part to cover some highly influential figures, and in part from Jessie Kesson�s more immediate context: feminine, rural, the North East. There is a place for such historical and systematic work, of course, and I hope that someone will do it. All I can hope for is that I may have provided some beginning but more importantly, that my work in this chapter will sharpen, further, an understanding of Jessie Kesson. I begin with the life and work of the poet, Robert Burns. As well as featuring in Kesson�s Glitter of Mica, Burns and his legacy are matters of influence in the gendered ideal of 'Scottishness' for both laymen and writers at home and abroad. Following Burns, I contrast the unconscious gender ideology which permeates Neil Gunn�s writing with the progressive awareness of gender issues that characterises the work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon and aligns the latter with Kesson�s. I then examine the idealised landscapes and sentimentalised characters of the Kailyard era and the hostile response of the anti-Kailyard writers. This leads into an examination of Hugh MacDiarmid�s poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. MacDiarmid, like Burns, was monumental on the Scottish literary scene and his efforts to rekindle the spirit of the primitive Scot through literature have made him influential with a smaller but equally significant group. What is of particular relevance to my work is that the ideal of 'Scottishness' fostered by writers such as Burns and MacDiarmid is heavily dependent on prescribed gender positions which promote the exploitation of women while rendering them subservient to men and politically powerless. It is from within this environment of gender-based Scottishness that Jessie Kesson and other women writers, were writing and arguing. Therefore, lastly, in Chapter Eight, I concentrate on those women writers whose work has the most relevance to the time, place and ideological content of Kesson�s writing: Violet Jacob, Catherine Carswell, Lorna Moon, Willa Muir and Nan Shepherd. The writing of all of these women is concerned with psychic well-being centred on human relations and/or self-determination and, of the five, the writings of Willa Muir and Nan Shepherd are considered more fully because of the particular contribution they make to my examination of Jessie Kesson: Willa Muir commented, both directly and indirectly, on gender matters. Nan Shepherd, quite apart from being a friend of many years to Jessie Kesson, wrote novels in which gender issues are entirely central. FOOTNOTE: I am indebted to Sir Maitland Mackie for giving me a guided tour of Westertown Farm, the setting for Darklands in The Glitter of Mica.

This thesis offers an inquiry into shame; in particular a reading of some women's lived experience of shame from a psychoanalytic and feminist perspective. This work also reflects critically on epistemological issues and tensions between the adoption of qualitative methods of research and psychoanalytic, feminist and post-structuralist readings of texts. The thesis starts with an outline of its contents, a reflexive history of the research, and a brief introduction on shame. Chapters one to three review the main body of literature on shame, critically reflecting on how shame is constructed within different theoretical frameworks. This investigation begins with the work of Sigmund Freud and the different constructions of shame in Freudian metapsychology (chapter one) and continues with a review of the literature on the role of shame in social and interpsychic dynamics (chapter two). Chapter three focuses on the literature arguing for a crucial link between shame and femininity. Epistemological and methodological issues are discussed in chapters four; while chapter five provides a detailed description of how the research was carried out and of the analysis of the text. Chapters six to ten are based on in-depth semi-structured interviews on women's experience of shame. The discursive analysis investigates the ideological function of the shameful subject position within the context of the themes identified in the thematic decomposition of the interviews. The conclusion summaries and reflects on the thesis as a whole; it also comments on some implications of the different readings of shame proposed in the thesis.