How Psychoanalytic Thinking Lost its Way in the Hands of Men: The Case for Feminist Psychotherapy

Abstract

Abstract A feminist stance is adopted to challenge the androcentric nature of many of the concepts which lie within the tradition of male psychoanalytical thinking. Such thinking steadfastly refused, and largely still refuses, to acknowledge the social reality and consequences of women's experience of living in a patriarchal society. It is argued that psychoanalytical theory has construed women as inferior and is wholly revealing of what men expect and want women to be. Any psychotherapy based solely within that tradition thus plays its part in the oppression of women. Two concepts from analytical psychotherapy, transference and counter-transference, are used as specific examples, and some contrasting researches advanced by feminist psychotherapy are outlined.