A Psychoanalytic Lesson in the Politics of Female Power By Prudence L. Gourguechon
Click Here To Read: A Psychoanalytic Lesson in the Politics of Female Power By Prudence L. Gourguechon in the Denver Post From Ausgust 25th, 2008.
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August 30th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Comment from Joseph Schachter:
Dr. Prudence Gourguechon, President of the American Psychoanalytic Association, attributed Hillary Clinton’s failure to win the Democratic nomination for President to a lack of understanding of “a fundamental psychoanalytic concept.” If Hillary had repeated the Lady Liberty theme, Prudence said, she would have “captured the ‘positive maternal transference’ and solidified the public’s ability to view her as a fighter and powerful female figure.”
I’m one of the 18 million Americans who preferred Obama, and, although I am a believer in a dynamic unconscious, I don’t think my judgment had any relation whatever to my ‘maternal transference,’ and would not have been influenced one iota by evocation of the ‘Lady Liberty’ theme. Some of my criticisms of Hillary are: 1. Her attempt under President Bill Clinton to reorganize the health care system was a disaster (I think she included insurance companies but no physicians in the deliberating committee); 2. She has never admitted that her voting for the Iraq war was a mistake (I think the capacity of a leader to admit a mistake is a critical characteristic); 3. I failed to get a sense of her authenticity as a person (my impression was that everything she said was tailored to what she thought people wanted to hear; her values and principles were not clear to me.); 4. She mismanaged her campaign.
I suspect that each of the other 18 million Americans who preferred Obama had their own individual, unique set of reasons and feelings for doing so. To assert that as psychoanalysts we know what would have influenced those 18 million voters in favor of Hillary seems to me presumptuous.
What evidence does Prudence have for her assertion? I hope she will correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think she has any evidence. And for the President of the American Psychoanalytic Association to make such an assertion publicly, supports the critical view of those who regard psychoanalysis as an unscientific enterprise.
Joe Schachter
August 30th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Comment from Alice Maher:
How true it is…. but… sigh… As Drew Westen points out, the Republicans are much better than the Democrats at this kind of transference-based advertising. Sarah Palin??? How much closer to “Lady Liberty” can you get???
Alice Maher, M.D
August 31st, 2008 at 10:44 am
I read with great interest the column that Prudy Gourguechon published in a Denver newspaper. While I agree with her conclusion that Obama’s receiving the nomination doesn’t signify that the country isn’t ready to elect a woman and that sexism wasn’t the essential factor in Clinton’s loss I believe that her use of the concept of transference as explanatory is highly subjective and far from representing an acceptable application of psychoanalytic concepts to the arena of politics. I would point out that Hillary Clinton won in Ohio where she was the carping mother and won quite impressively. Are we to believe that the people of Ohio loved their carping and controlling moms while those in Iowa had a different transference to their mothers?
As someone who followed the campaign closely I would challenge Prudy’s perception of how Hillary Clinton was seen and experienced at various points in the election. Most importantly the impression I had was that the media greatly influenced how she was perceived because of its ability to influence how the audience interpreted their experience of her. There were some instances where the maternal transference definitely was a primary influence. For instance, one psychoanalytic colleague that I talked to insisted that every time she looked at Hillary Clinton she saw her angry mother’s face coming at her; as I pointed out to her, having seen the same Hillary on TV I didn’t perceive her as angry or scolding even though I could assure her that my own mother had plenty of angry expressions and no reluctance to show them.
The concept of transference as described classically in our literature has rightly been subjected to much questioning within psychoanalysis because of its reductionistic qualities. The idea that a qualified woman candidate for national office must convey a caring maternal imago simply continues a kind of gender prejudice which is most unfortunate. As far as I can tell both male and female candidates need to convey a human warmth and respect for those around them. Obama himself slipped in the public’s perception when he turned sarcastic with Clinton, telling her, in a condescending tone, that she was” likable enough”. Mrs. Ghandi and Mrs. Thachter, two of the most successful women politicians were hardly known for their maternal warmth, nor was the hard talking Golda Meier a fountain of maternal imagery.
Perhaps we need to remember that as psychoanalysts we may have something to offer about individual functioning but it stops at the border of political movements. The psychology of groups is complex, to say the least. Freud himself had a difficult time recognizing what was happening in Europe while watching the Nazi rise to power. Prudy’s observations should be seen as the reflections of one psychoanalyst’s application of psychoanalysis to politics. Unfortunately, as I read her article, it was written to be interpreted as THIS is what psychoanalysis would have to say about the primary elections and about the need for women to pay heed to the maternal transference if they are to succeed in achieving high office. ( Would Prudy view her own election to the Presidency of the APsaA or that of Lynne Moritz as related to each of their capacities to convey the positive side of the maternal transference or are we as analyzed individuals free from that very problematic dominance by unconscious tranferences.)
I can’t help but wonder whether the Republican candidate for VP, Sara Pallin, will, by virtue of having mothered five children, greatly increase the appeal of McCain’s presidential efforts. Somehow, I believe and hope that the voting public will be sufficiently aware of her lack of qualification to be ” a heartbeat away from the Presidency” that no amount of positive maternal transference to her will influence the outcome.
Henry J. Friedman
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:24 am
Comment from Elaine Steiner:
Dr. Gourguechon assesses the politics of female power using the fall of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidential nomination as a case history of the fundamental psychological concept of transference: Powerful men are sought after, often idolized. Powerful women are automatically feared and mistrusted unless they are savvy enough to cloak their image in an aura of empathetic understanding. According to Dr. Gourguechon powerful women have to be “particularly smart in understanding and managing the transference that will inevitably come their way.” This is the doctor’s premise and she makes her case well.
Hillary Clinton managed the transference magnificently in her speech on the Convention Floor the night before she asked for Barack Obama’s nomination by acclamation. She embodied grace and charm, intelligence and grit, and elicited from the thousands in that stadium a deep sense of admiration and gratitude. In those two instances she proved her hard-earned power. No small accomplishment. She established her power in a womanly fashion.
Enter Sarah Palin, an apparently feisty, ingénue/cheerleader type with a husband she refers to as “First Dude”. But does Sarah Palin fit the description of a powerful woman? I think not. Does her limited career as Mayor of a small town and her not quite two years as Governor of a geographically large, sparsely populated state, and as a self-proclaimed “hockey-mom” translate to “a powerful woman”?
Yes, she is a mother – of five. Mothers will empathize. Mothers of children with Down Syndrome will empathize. Some will question her choices, others will applaud them. One suspects that she has been too busy to have succumbed to “the negative side of a mother experienced as nagging, restricting, shaming or controlling.”
These factors may suffice politically to rally a group that John McCain had failed to charm. Her youthful exuberance may rally some women to fantasize about being plucked out of their lives by a powerful older man who will elevate their status, but does that imply power? Or hunger for power?
How will her eagerness to be used by a powerful, notably erratic man to achieve his goal play to the electorate? Will it backfire? What would Dr. Gourquechon say?
Elaine Steiner