FREUDS VIEWS AND THE CHANGING PERSPECTIVE ON FEMALENESS AND FEMININITY - WHAT MY FEMALE ANALYSANDS TAUGHT ME

In this article, I critically examine Freud's views on female psychose xual development and femininity. The effect of Freud's patriarchal bia s on the manner in which his followers analyzed women and the goals th ey set for the analysis of women are shown via vignettes. Throughout t he late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, feminism forced a reexamination of pr eviously accepted Freudian postulates from without and within the psyc hoanalytic establishment. Thus, to the extent to which countertransfer ence permits it, women began to be listened to during their analyses r ather than told how it is and should be. The importance of analyzing t he pathological conformity to gender stereotypes and to gender mytholo gies is stressed, because these determine not only the external realit ies in which women and men live but also the content and shape of the psychic world of each gender. The object relations and social relation s introjected by the infant psyche of the girl give rise to her infant ile ''mythologies'' in which the male child is superior to the female. The reverse is true for the male child. Vignettes illustrate technica l suggestions applicable to the analysis of women. New findings are di scussed.