£12.59 – £17.99
A short and timely book, inviting you to take part in a much larger conversation about how women are treated and seen in psychoanalysis. A place where misogyny hides in plain sight, unchallenged and unnoticed. A must-read for all psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and academics working in related fields. Get your copy and join the debate!
| Author | Michaela Chamberlain |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9781912691395 |
| Format | Paperback, e-Book, Print & e-Book |
| Page Extent | 100 |
| Publication Date | May 2022 |
| Subject Areas | Psychoanalysis |
In psychoanalysis, misogyny hides in plain sight, seemingly above and beyond the usual conventions of workplace etiquette or even a vague awareness of sexism. It is commonplace in psychoanalytic literature and in the presentation of case studies for a description of the female client’s attractiveness to be given as a diagnosis rather than an opinion, for the word ‘feminine’ to be used as a synonym for submission, for psychosexual development to still miss the glaringly important stage of menstruation, for women to still be described in terms of losing a penis but gaining a baby – not a vagina or clitoris – and for the fundamental experiences of pregnancy and birth to be overlooked. Ironically for a field that’s main currency is reflection, the different treatment of women is bypassed as misogyny is institutionalised in psychoanalysis.
The book reflects the author’s experience in the world of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as a trainee, supervisee, student, teacher, psychotherapist and supervisor in various institutions, and as a former CEO of a psychotherapy training organisation. It is a collection of five essays inviting you to join an inclusive conversation about why psychoanalysis is the way it is and, through a case study, experience the impact this misogyny has on the treatment of women. Misogyny in Psychoanalysis highlights what’s at risk for the practice of psychoanalysis / psychotherapy and, most importantly, for those seeking help when institutionalised misogyny goes by unchallenged.
Michaela Chamberlain trained at The Bowlby Centre and also studied in the Psychoanalytic Unit at UCL. Shortly after qualifying at The Bowlby Centre in 2016, she started teaching Freud and attachment theory and became CEO of The Bowlby Centre. She worked as an honorary psychotherapist in two NHS Trusts for several years. She has presented clinical papers at public forums and has been published in the journal Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis. She is currently carrying out a doctoral research project on a psychoanalytic reading of gendered blood in live art and psychoanalytic writing at Roehampton University.
She works in private practice as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and is a supervisor and training therapist.
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Visiting Professor Adam Phillips, English Department, University of York –
‘It seems astonishing that this is the first psychoanalytic book about misogyny, and about the misogyny in psychoanalysis. It is fortunate that this is such a remarkable book, lucid, incisive and accessible: and essential now to the theory and practice not only of psychoanalysis, but to all the psychological therapies.’
Professor Gina Heathcote, School of Law, Gender and Media, SOAS University of London –
‘This important book is a must-read for analyst and lay-person alike, providing a detailed and careful analysis illustrating why psychoanalysis as both a field of research and as a practice has a persistent blind spot when it comes to misogyny. In equal parts engaging and informative, Michaela Chamberlain draws in narrative, art, personal experience, and her detailed knowledge as a psychoanalyst to shake at the canon and ask, in eloquent yet forceful terms, for the need for psychoanalysis to take itself to the couch and examine the legacy of Freud’s misogyny that continues to infiltrate the field. As a gender studies reader, I found the book both accessible and enlightening on the ways through which women’s sexuality and mothering continue to be defined from a position of retrograde knowledge on women’s lives, anatomy, health, and consciousness. From menstruation to mothering and academic life, Chamberlain has provided a text that will reverberate for readers in significant and lasting ways.’
David Morgan, Consultant Psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, and editor of the Political Mind series –
‘Psychoanalysis can become a psychic retreat so as to avoid our own blind spots. We are all steeped in our respective eras with all the inherent defensive certainties that this social and political rootedness can engender. This has clearly been the case in relation to misogyny. It has taken some courage to write this challenging and well-crafted book. It will also require courage for male analysts to recognise themselves within it.’
Anouchka Grose, Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research –
‘This is a brilliant, necessary book – so well written and argued. I tore through it in one sitting. The case material is illuminating and overall the book manages to be critical of psychoanalysis while remaining at all times psychoanalytic. A real achievement.’
cstamou (verified owner) –
Current, relevant, insightful, and acutely observed account of the impact of unexamined misogyny in the psychoanalytic field and beyond, laid out in an accessible, daring, bold and courageous manner. Michaela Chamberlain leads the way we should be having these difficult conversations, calls out the elephant in the room, and interrupts us when we turn a blind eye as an attempt to give in to convention, habit, and uncertainty. After all, as psychoanalysis has shown time and time again, it is through exposing difficult thoughts that we get to understand their root cause and find a way to work through them.
Amazon review – Robert Kramer, July 2022 –
5/5 stars: The war on women waged by psychoanalysts
Michaela Chamberlain has written the most important book on the culture of psychoanalysis since Ernest Gellner’s masterpiece, “The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason.” Her book becomes an instant classic.
Forget all the deceptive talk by analysts who insist that, already long ago, they eliminated Freud’s misogyny from the practice and teaching of analysis.
Not so.
Chamberlain shows this claim to be deliberate deception of the public or, at best, self-deception. Not much has changed in analytic institutes since Freud came up with his bizarre theory of penis envy.
Psychoanalysis, notwithstanding the predominance of women in the field, remains misogynistic in its unconscious because Freud built his movement on the basis of a war against women.
The analytic institutes are still run essentially by men who seem to spend a considerable portion of their time admiring their own penises, and asking their women patients to admire them as well, while paying no attention to issues like menstruation, pregnancy and menopause.
Unfortunately, Freud is not dead.
The worst of Freud lives on.
Read this book for a breath of fresh air.
Professor Tony Attwood, clinical psychologist, specialist in Autism Spectrum Disorders –
‘I really enjoyed reading the chapter ‘The misogynistic introject – a case study’ and thoroughly endorse your perception of how psychoanalysis assumes that it is a fault in the mother that creates autistic characteristics, and if not creates, then potentially amplifies. I am sure that you will be contacted by many mothers who resonate with the descriptions. My feedback is one of gratitude to you for writing the chapter and I know that mothers will support you. I only hope that analysts recognise the misogyny in psychoanalysis.’
Debbie Zimmerman, attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist, ‘New Psychotherapist’ –
‘This long overdue book jolts us forcibly and necessarily out of our collective dissociative blindness. It rips away the veil of the ‘misogynistic introject’ of our unwillingness/inability to see what is (quoting the author) ‘hiding in plain sight’, throwing into stark relief and forcing us to confront the glaring misogyny and patriarchal foundations and their continuing pervasiveness in our field. […] this book is a page-turner which had me riveted from beginning to end.’