Women and psychology

Perhaps the most important contribution I made to psychodynamic thought was my disagreements with Freud’s view of women. I was never a student of Freud, but did study his work and eventually taught psychoanalysis at both the Berlin and New York Psychoanalytic Institute. After my insistence that Freud’s view of the inherent difference between males and females, I agreed to leave the institute and form my own school known as the American Institute for Psychoanalysis.

In many ways, I was well ahead of my time and although I died before the feminist movement took hold, I was perhaps the theorist who changed the way psychology looked at gender differences. I countered Freud’s concept of penis envy with what I called womb envy, or man’s envy of woman’s ability to bear children. I argued that men compensate for this inability by striving for achievement and success in other realms.

I also disagreed with Freud’s belief that males and females were born with inherent differences in their personality. Rather than citing biological differences, I argued for a societal and cultural explanation. In my view, men and women were equal outside of the cultural restrictions often placed on being female. These views, while not well accepted at the time, were used years after my death to help promote gender equality.