From the “Child Woman” to “Wonder Woman” -Psychoanalytic Misogyny, Progress and Some Effects on Clinical Work

Tuesday, April 27, 2021, 6:30 – 8:30pm CST

Location: Zoom: https://icsw.zoom.us/j/6410482572

Presenter: Rosemary Balsam, MD

After the presentation we will have time for a discussion, during which you can send in questions or comments for the speakers to answer.

View the recording here.

This talk will give a brief theory overview from Freud’s Vienna to the present, in relation to gender bias and misunderstanding of females (and therefore also of males). The power of ideals (e.g., The “Child Woman” or “Wonder Woman”), and their cultural and familial meanings, will be discussed. This provides a focus in thinking about the building blocks of body image. Slides and illustrative case vignettes will be offered.

Rosemary H. Balsam F.R.C.Psych (Lond), M.R. C. P. (Edin), (originally from Belfast, N. Ireland), is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Yale Medical School, Staff Psychiatrist in the Yale Department of Student Mental Health and Counseling, and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis in New Haven, Connecticut. Her special interests are female gender developments, young adulthoods, the body in psychic life, and the work of Hans Loewald. She has written award-winning papers and books, lectured here and abroad, is on the editorial boards of PQ and Imago, and was a co-editor of the Book Review Section of JAPA with her husband, Paul Schwaber. Her most recent book is Women’s Bodies in Psychoanalysis (2012).  Her honors include being the National Woman Travelling Scholar for APsaA in 2005, and the Sigourney Award for excellence in the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in 2018. She was the first woman in the USA to receive this prize.

Educational Objectives:

After attending this session, participants should be able to:

1)    Critique (historically) misogyny in the theory of sex and gender development in psychoanalytic thinking.
2)    Utilize one’s reactions and patients’ reactions to biases against the body in relation to psychodynamics and transference-countertransference problems.