Women in Therapy Book Reviews

Women in Therapy by Harriet Lerner Book Summary

Psychoanalysts have long believed that penis envy is central to the understanding of women and have invoked this concept to explain everything from a woman’s desire for a husband and child to her strivings to work and compete in traditionally male-dominated fields.2 Those outside psychoanalytic circles have shown less enthusiasm for such explanations—particularly feminists who have pointed out that women have cause to be envious of men’s position in society for reasons other than their possession of the desired penis. Certain psychoanalysts have, in turn, insisted that the women’s liberation movement is itself a manifestation of penis envy and that discontent with the female role is a psychiatric problem.

Narrow and stereotyped notions concerning women’s appropriate place in society are not confined to a mere handful of psychoanalysts. The most authoritative of psychoanalysts have concurred that the “true” nature of women is to find fulfillment in the traditional role of wife and mother (Chesler 1972). Without sharing Freud’s views of the Oedipus complex and penis envy, Jung (1928) nevertheless stated “that in taking up a masculine calling, studying, and working in a man’s way, woman is doing something not wholly in agreement with, if not directly injurious to, her feminine nature” (p. 169). Bettelheim (1965) commented that “as much as women want to be good scientists or engineers, they want first and foremost to be womanly companions of men and to be mothers” (p. 15). Women who are not happy with this state of affairs, according to Freud (1925), have refused adaptively to come to grips with their sexual inferiority and still have the “hope of some day obtaining a penis in spite of everything” (p. 191).

Although I am not in agreement with those who discredit the existence of penis envy, I do believe that psychoanalysts who rationalize certain maladaptive aspects of femininity as unavoidable biological necessities court contempt by carrying the concept of penis envy to untenable extremes. As Chesler (1972) has commented, “The ‘Freudian’ vision beholds women as essentially ‘breeders and bearers,’ as potentially warmhearted creatures, but more often as cranky children with uteruses, forever mourning the loss of male organs and male identity” (p. 79).

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Women in Therapy (Harriet Lerner) Book Reviews 2024

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