Relational psychoanalysis and feminism: a crossing of historical paths

Abstract

This paper examines the impact on and interaction between feminism and psychoanalysis over the last 30 years, including the contribution of its authors. It argues that the rise of the relational approach in psychoanalysis corresponds to, and in part stems from, a feminist vision. Gender‐conscious psychoanalysis demands a change from a unilateral, analyst‐centred, patient‐as‐object reality to a therapeutic encounter of a mutual reality co‐created between two emerging subjectivities, analyst and analysand, in ways that parallel feminism's transformation of and critique of the univocal, male‐centred worldview to bring in the voices of the marginalized. The relational approach to psychoanalysis allows fixed categories of gender to open up, and supports creative use of the analyst's subjectivity. The struggle to be connected and yet autonomous in the analytic relationship offers a possible model for relationships in society in general.