EDITH KURZWEIL
Feminists and Freudians
P sychoanalysis and feminism have had an ambivalent relationship almost
from the beginning, when Freud began to develop his theories in order
to cure women suffering from hysterical symptoms, and then went on to
try emancipating other women as well. Subsequently, the two move–
ments, together or in opposition, were among the most dynamic main–
springs of modern society. But as their theoretical underpinnings shifted
in response to intellectual questions, and their communities were clamor–
ing for political guidance, they evolved in line with specific intellectual
and feminist prerogatives which themselves were responses to their mi–
lieus.
The speculative nature of psychoanalysis itself legitimates its propo–
nents' and opponents' flights of fancy, the confusions between reality and
fantasy, and between scientific and therapeutic explanations of psycho–
logical phenomena. The political nature of feminism justifies the often
hyperbolic calls for active involvement and the consequent exaggerations
of women's psychological dilemmas and suffering in order to score
points and achieve political ends. Hence psychoanalysis and feminism
function in different spheres. But psychoanalytic views by a few women
have given feminism inordinate boosts, when their insights into psychic
mechanisms have freed women to compete in political arenas. Feminist
advances, however, have not directly bolstered the psychoanalytic move–
ment. The two activities have grown up like a pair of Siamese twins, un–
able to exist apart from each other for long - progressing, regressing or
treading water almost in tandem. But like mountain springs they have
descended where they best could dig in to turn into powerful streams -
embedding themselves and changing directions depending upon the ter–
rain. Consequently, cultural circumstances in America, in France and
Germany, as well as in other countries, not only have allowed Freud's
fo ll owers to pursue and elaborate different theoretical and clinical paths
but to infuse these with local and parochial assumptions, and to reinvig–
orate debates that had turned unnecessarily stale.
Editor's Note: This essay is an ad aptation of the Introduction to the
forthcoming book,
Femil1ists arid Frelldians
by Edith Kurzweil, to be published
by Westview Press.
