Female experience

About this book

Female Experience brings together contributions from three generations of female psychoanalysts writing about their own experiences of working with female patients and questioning the specific determinants of female sexuality and gender identity which have become central in psychoanalytic debate. The authors represent a cross-section of different theoretical orientations (Kleinian, Freudian and Independent) and also draw on varied professional backgrounds. Beginning with Freud, psychoanalysts have questioned the constraints of gender as manifested with transference and countertransference within the therapeutic process. However, explorations have focused on cross-gender alliances. The contributors to this book present detailed material pertaining exclusively to the analytic relation between women. The insight this book gives into female analyst's special way of listening to and understanding women's preoccupations serves to illustrate why British analysts have made such a huge contribution to the psychoanalytic gender debate in recent years. The editors are both full members of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and the International Psychoanalytical Association.