Psychoanalytic Explorations of What Women Want Today: Femininity, Desire and Agency - Paperback

by Margarita Cereijido (Editor), Paula L. Ellman (Editor), Nancy R. Goodman (Editor)

In this book, international psychoanalytic writers address the question 'What do Women Want Today?' from a variety of lenses, bringing into focus the creative, resilient forces shown by women in their multiple social and psychological tasks.

The book reviews classic psychoanalytic theories about the feminine within a new cultural context. It challenges hegemonic gender prejudices and discusses new conceptions that do not pathologize 'different' lifestyles and family configurations. With chapters by leading, international thinkers in the field, this book explores how to think about new feminine scenarios, gender identities, gender dynamics, motherhood, and desire, in light of modern psychoanalytic theories. In presenting how these changing contemporary notions of the feminine challenge classic psychoanalytic theory and practice, this book will compel both training and experienced analysts to think about new psychoanalytic theories and engage with their own prejudices regarding changing notions of the feminine.

Offering ideas relevant to psychoanalysis, sociology, gender studies, psychology, and activism, this book will be of great interest to professionals, teachers and students in addition to any with an interest in psychoanalytic theory and women's studies.

Author Biography

Margarita Cereijido, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty Member of the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. She has written and taught on the areas of gender, culture, and prejudice. She organizes the Culture and Psychoanalysis annual conference at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and is a member of the Committee of Women and Psychoanalysis (COWAP) at the International Psychoanalytic Association.

Paula L. Ellman, Ph.D., ABPP., is a training and supervising analyst in the Contemporary Freudian Society, Washington DC, and the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. She is Overall Chair of the IPA Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis and Chair of the IPA Inter-committee Work Group on Prejudice and Race. She is on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and is a Board Member of the North America Psychoanalytic Confederation (NAPsaC).

Nancy R. Goodman, Ph.D., is a training and supervising analyst with the CFS and the IPA and a faculty member for the Wuhan Training Program, China. She writes about trauma, symbolizing processes, female development, and unconscious fantasy. She is a member of the Asia-Pacific Planning Committee of the International Psychoanalytic Association and Founder and Director of the online Virtual Psychoanalytic Museum with IP Books, and she maintains a psychoanalytic practice in Bethesda, Maryland.