Amazon.com: The Freudian Mystique: Freud, Women, and Feminism (9780814780145): Samuel Slipp: Books
Patriarchal power has been normalized to date, and not critiqued by the important figures of Western intellectual culture. Slipp attempts to correct this state of affairs in the light of Freud's system of psychology.
Samuel Slipp holds that it was because Freud had abandonment issues with his mother, which prevented him from viewing his relationship with his mother in a logical, correct and consistent way, that Freud made no useful analysis of "feminine psychology". Due to his unstable connection with his mother, he was unable to make any inroads into her consciousness to understand much about it. Perhaps "human psychology as it pertains to women" would have been a better term, as I am doubtful that a qualitatively different "feminine psychology" actually exists.
In any case, from a young age Freud's psyche was split between seeing his mother in a wholly positive and wholly negative light. He would have had to understand his own psychology in relation to his mother to make sense of hers, but the "light" kept changing on him, due to early developmental issues.
It is my considered view that one must necessarily accept the de facto nature of patriarchal power to come up with a term, "feminine psychology". If women experience the world in ways significantly different from men, this would be a practical outcome of patriarchal power dynamics. So Slipp's views could be complemented by sociological studies, so as to avoid falling into a trap of positing metaphysical postulates. For instance, patriarchal intellectuals have traditionally held that women are necessarily "passive". This was true in the case of Freud's expectations and suppositions. The problem is that if one has accepts this, one will not be able to turn up any evidence to the contrary, no matter how widely one may look. It is of vital importance, therefore, to differentiate metaphysics (with its religious basis) from genuine science, which is always alert to measuring the changing world "out there".
Slipp's writing is brilliant for indicating how a certain degree of pathology -- including Freud's own, as signified by a lack of knowledge of "the psychology of the feminine" -- has become normalized. Patriarchal dynamics, insofar as they exert a negative and pathological effect on those who come under them, have not at all been understood. That is a further extrapolation one might be able to take from his book. Feminists and sociologists, however, are well aware of the negative outcomes of power as suppression, whilst psychologists and psychoanalysts, in my experience, lag behind.
Patriarchal power has been normalized to date, and not critiqued by the important figures of Western intellectual culture. Slipp attempts to correct this state of affairs in the light of Freud's system of psychology.
Samuel Slipp holds that it was because Freud had abandonment issues with his mother, which prevented him from viewing his relationship with his mother in a logical, correct and consistent way, that Freud made no useful analysis of "feminine psychology". Due to his unstable connection with his mother, he was unable to make any inroads into her consciousness to understand much about it. Perhaps "human psychology as it pertains to women" would have been a better term, as I am doubtful that a qualitatively different "feminine psychology" actually exists.
In any case, from a young age Freud's psyche was split between seeing his mother in a wholly positive and wholly negative light. He would have had to understand his own psychology in relation to his mother to make sense of hers, but the "light" kept changing on him, due to early developmental issues.
It is my considered view that one must necessarily accept the de facto nature of patriarchal power to come up with a term, "feminine psychology". If women experience the world in ways significantly different from men, this would be a practical outcome of patriarchal power dynamics. So Slipp's views could be complemented by sociological studies, so as to avoid falling into a trap of positing metaphysical postulates. For instance, patriarchal intellectuals have traditionally held that women are necessarily "passive". This was true in the case of Freud's expectations and suppositions. The problem is that if one has accepts this, one will not be able to turn up any evidence to the contrary, no matter how widely one may look. It is of vital importance, therefore, to differentiate metaphysics (with its religious basis) from genuine science, which is always alert to measuring the changing world "out there".
Slipp's writing is brilliant for indicating how a certain degree of pathology -- including Freud's own, as signified by a lack of knowledge of "the psychology of the feminine" -- has become normalized. Patriarchal dynamics, insofar as they exert a negative and pathological effect on those who come under them, have not at all been understood. That is a further extrapolation one might be able to take from his book. Feminists and sociologists, however, are well aware of the negative outcomes of power as suppression, whilst psychologists and psychoanalysts, in my experience, lag behind.
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