Based on the author's clinical experience as psychoanalytic psychotherapists, this reconsideration of lesbian lives and lesbian experiences offers a new and thoughtful framework that does not inevitably pathologize or universalize all lesbianism, but instead argues for the development of a psychotherapeutic theory and practice open to the complexities and vicissitudes of individual life histories, relationships, and identities. Surveying a wide range of psychoanalytic ideas about lesbianism, O'Connor and Ryan critically address questions of sexual identity, sexual desire, and gender identity,...

This groundbreaking book, based on the authors' clinical experience as psychoanalytic psychotherapists, provides a challenging exploration of psychoanalytic ideas about lesbians and lesbianism from Freud, Deutsch, Jung and Lacan to contemporary object-relations theorists, such as Klein and McDougall. Questions of sexual identity, sexual desire and gender identity, of transference and countertransference, and also of institutional practices in relation to training, are all critically -- and stimulatingly -- addressed.

Face-to-face with differences in the analytical relationship, analysts frequently confront the limitations of their theories. In this new book, Mary Lynne Ellis and Noreen O'Connor move to the heart of 21st century intertwining of psychoanalytical and philosophical critical reflections. They highlight how philosophical perspectives on language, embodiment, time, history, and conscious/unconscious experiences can contribute to clinical interpretations of gender, sexuality, race, age, culture, and class. Vital to Questioning Identities: Philosophy in Psychoanalytic Practice is its...