Power of Feelings Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture

"Chodorow's interest in the relationship between psyche and culture in THE POWER OF FEELINGS is hardly new. In fact, much of the book can be described as a tissue of quotations from other thinkers such as D.W. Winnicott, Erik Erikson, Gananath Obeyesekere, and Hans Loewald. It is, rather, Chodorow's resolute belief in the power of psychoanalysis to describe the complex series of relations between culture and psychic life that helps to give color and shape to her argument: "I read psychoanalysis as precisely the theory that describes in detail how the individual mediates and creates inner and outer at the same time," she argues. "Psychoanalysis allows for a recognition and understanding of the personal meanings that create psychic life and give it an added glow." The strength of Chodorow's analysis is, therefore, not so much in its originality but, rather, in its commitment to a range of seemingly incompatible traditions and its refusal to compromise its passionate vision of personal meaning and emotional life."Chodorow, Nancy J. is the author of 'Power of Feelings Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture' with ISBN 9780300089097 and ISBN 0300089090.