What Freud Said About Women

A study into Freud’s world unveils his interest in women

A psychoanalyst examines Freud’s environment to understand how the father of psychoanalysis established his models and concepts

At the end of the nineteenth century, some clinical symptoms challenged the rational knowledge of medicine. Unable to physically identify what afflicted some women, they were labeled hysterical. The picture became clearer after Sigmund Freud developed a new field of medical science, making invaluable discoveries and proposing a new form of treatment: psychotherapy. In order to understand this epistemological revolution, Professor José Arthur Molina suggests examining all that surrounds this discovery, the politics, society, literature, and art in Freud’s Vienna.

The findings of this research are in the book What Freud Said About Women [O Que Freud Dizia Sobre as Mulheres]. The goal is to investigate how Freud, subverting the scientific assumptions of his time, created his models and innovative concepts, such as the unconscious. In the same way, a subsidiary objective is to understand how the modern world is established after the disintegration of the old hierarchy between sexes. By following this path, Freud’s phallic logic faces difficulties, which he himself would mention in his later works. From his research and listening to countless patients, Freud established a unique theory, with concepts such as unconsciousness, drive, and a method that included listening, free association, and transference.

The co-protagonism of both, the role of women and the Freudian theory, is approached by seeking inspiration in art and poetry. Following a suggestion by Freud himself, Molina ventures into the artistic and literary fields to know the kind of woman that was being shaped at that time. According to the author, “Arthur Schnitzler’s literature (who places women as the main character in his work) and Gustav Klimt’s paintings (whose art is entirely dedicated to women) showed them naked, with no sin and no shame”. On that basis, he defines the task of psychoanalysis – after affirming that men and women can write their destiny beyond the formulations that restrict singularity – as “the enunciation of singularities and making the otherness flag flutter with new possibilities of being in the world”.

About the author – José Artur Molina is a psychologist, psychoanalyst and poet. He holds a M.Phil. in Psychoanalytical Theory from the Complutense University of Madrid, a Ph.D. in Psychology and Society from the Faculty of Science and Languages of Unesp – Assis and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social Psychology from the Department of Social Psychology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Maringá State University.

 

Title: What Freud Said About Women [O Que Freud Dizia Sobre as Mulheres]
Author: José Artur Molina
Number of pages: 184
Format: 14 x 21 cm
ISBN: 978-85-393-0628-2
Rights: worldwide free

Summary