0.6 Psychology of women  (Page 5/14)

It would appear that humans, living in communities, cannot dispense with sexual repression of some kind and that, if it has not succeeded in coming from within, it must go on coming from without. (pg. 157; Bonaparte, 1953)

Before we turn our attention to the Stone Center group, I would like to mention something that may have already entered your mind. This book is about personality, not sexuality. While it may be true that sexuality is an important part of life, it is certainly not the same thing as one’s personality. Unless, of course, you happen to be a strict Freudian theorist, as was Bonaparte. She does tend to equate the psychology of women with their sexuality. The psychologists of the Stone Center group, however, have moved beyond this biased view of the psychology of women.

Discussion Question: In keeping with Freud’s original theory, Bonaparte believed that sexual development is much more difficult for girls than it is boys. Do you agree with that, and if you do, what is it that makes things so much more difficult for girls? Are there any unique challenges that only boys face?

Placing the Psychology of Women in Context: Sexism vs. Feminism

Sigmund Freud developed a theory of female sexuality that helped to explain his observation that most people in psychoanalysis were women. Karen Horney agreed that women suffer more than men, but she placed the blame on men, and the patriarchal culture that maintains special privileges for men only. Despite the fact that Freud and Adler admitted that they did not fully understand women, and that there were many women among the neo-Freudians, it was a long time before a unique perspective on the psychology of women developed.

In contrast to women like Princess Bonaparte and Helene Deutsch, the first leading female member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (the very first female member, Hermine von Hug-Hellmuth, was murdered in 1924; Deutsch, 1973, Sayers, 1991) and the first person to devote an entire book to the psychology of women (a two volume set published in consecutive years; Deutsch, 1944, 1945), Jean Baker Miller and her colleagues at the Stone Center developed a unique theory on the psychological development and personality of women. Although their theory, based on personal relationships and culture, developed in part as a result of increasing interest in feminist studies in the 1960s and 1970s, the work that continues today strives to include the personality development of all people (women and men).

There are some women, however, who believe that a feminist perspective can be combined more readily with Freud’s basic ideas (see, e.g., Mitchell, 2000). Nancy Chodorow has worked to combine both psychodynamic and feminist ideas into a comprehensive theory. Although the result is basically an object relations theory, Chodorow’s work has been reserved for this chapter due to her inclusion of the feminist side of the perspective.

It is also important to note that the work of the Stone Center group and Nancy Chodorow is much more contemporary than that of Bonaparte, Deutsch, and many of the neo-Freudians discussed in this book (most of whom are no longer alive). Thus, the development of feminist perspectives on the psychology of women continues today.