Misogyny in Psychoanalysis

'I really enjoyed reading the chapter ‘The misogynistic introject – a case study’ and thoroughly endorse your perception of how psychoanalysis assumes that it is a fault in the mother that creates autistic characteristics, and if not creates, then potentially amplifies. I am sure that you will be contacted by many mothers who resonate with the descriptions.  My feedback is one of gratitude to you for writing the chapter and I know that mothers will support you. I only hope that analysts recognise the misogyny in psychoanalysis.'

-- Professor Tony Attwood, clinical psychologist, specialist in Autism Spectrum Disorders

'This long overdue book jolts us forcibly and necessarily out of our collective dissociative blindness. It rips away the veil of the ‘misogynistic introject’ of our unwillingness/inability to see what is (quoting the author) ‘hiding in plain sight’, throwing into stark relief and forcing us to confront the glaring misogyny and patriarchal foundations and their continuing pervasiveness in our field. [...] this book is a page-turner which had me riveted from beginning to end.'

-- Debbie Zimmerman, attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist, 'New Psychotherapist'

‘It seems astonishing that this is the first psychoanalytic book about misogyny, and about the misogyny in psychoanalysis. It is fortunate that this is such a remarkable book, lucid, incisive and accessible: and essential now to the theory and practice not only of psychoanalysis, but to all the psychological therapies.’

-- Visiting Professor Adam Phillips, English Department, University of York

‘This important book is a must-read for analyst and lay-person alike, providing a detailed and careful analysis illustrating why psychoanalysis as both a field of research and as a practice has a persistent blind spot when it comes to misogyny. In equal parts engaging and informative, Michaela Chamberlain draws in narrative, art, personal experience, and her detailed knowledge as a psychoanalyst to shake at the canon and ask, in eloquent yet forceful terms, for the need for psychoanalysis to take itself to the couch and examine the legacy of Freud's misogyny that continues to infiltrate the field. As a gender studies reader, I found the book both accessible and enlightening on the ways through which women's sexuality and mothering continue to be defined from a position of retrograde knowledge on women's lives, anatomy, health, and consciousness. From menstruation to mothering and academic life, Chamberlain has provided a text that will reverberate for readers in significant and lasting ways.’

-- Professor Gina Heathcote, School of Law, Gender and Media, SOAS University of London

‘This is a brilliant, necessary book – so well written and argued. I tore through it in one sitting. The case material is illuminating and overall the book manages to be critical of psychoanalysis while remaining at all times psychoanalytic. A real achievement.’

-- Anouchka Grose, Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research

‘Psychoanalysis can become a psychic retreat so as to avoid our own blind spots. We are all steeped in our respective eras with all the inherent defensive certainties that this social and political rootedness can engender. This has clearly been the case in relation to misogyny. It has taken some courage to write this challenging and well-crafted book. It will also require courage for male analysts to recognise themselves within it.’

-- David Morgan, Consultant Psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, and editor of the Political Mind series

‘This book is a monograph of passionate critique concerning the forms of misogyny to be found embedded in various psychoanalytic concepts, theories, practices and institutions. The book’s brevity, Michaela Chamberlain says, is to render it accessible to anyone with an interest in psychoanalysis. It is welcome to have a renewed focus on misogyny and to be reminded once again of its persistence and insidiousness.’

-- Joanna Ryan, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, ‘British Journal of Psychotherapy’

'[Chamberlain] eloquently interweaves her experience as a woman, psychotherapist and supervisor with meticulous research and critical analysis of misogyny in psychoanalytic theory and its practice – as well as its enactment and perpetuation in the communities and organisations in which we work and live. [...] This is also an engaging and sometimes moving read. Chamberlain powerfully conveys her sense of shock, pain and deep frustration at witnessing some glaring examples of misogynistic thinking. [...] This book is groundbreaking in the iconoclastic treatise which lies at its heart, the courage with which the author takes on the psychoanalytic establishment itself.'

-- Debbie Zimmerman, attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist, 'New Psychotherapist', Autumn 2022

'It seems more important than ever that we face up to the legacy of misogyny in psychoanalysis, so that we do not pass it on to the next generation. Michaela Chamberlain has started a really important conversation. It is up to all of us to keep talking.'

-- Annie Pesskin, trained at the BPF, works in private practice, and is the author of The Kids Are Crying Again: Emergency Communication Skills for Parents and Part