Impious fidelity : Anna Freud, psychoanalysis, politics

256 Pages·2011·2.84 MB·English

by  Stewart-Steinberg

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IMPIOUS FIDELITY

IMPIOUS FIDELITY
n
Anna Freud,
Psychoanalysis,
Politics
Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2011 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review,
this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in
any form without permission in writing from the pub-
lisher. For information, address Cornell University Press,
Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2011 by Cornell University Press
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stewart-Steinberg, Suzanne.
Impious fidelity: Anna Freud, psychoanalysis,
politics / Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8014-5034-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Psychoanalysis—Political aspects.
2. Psychoanalysis—History. 3. Freud,
Anna, 1895-1982. I. Title.
BF175.4.S65S744 2012
150.19'52092—dc23 2011022280
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally
responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent
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Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memoriam
Julia Davis Stewart
(1932–2010)
For indeed because of piety I was called impious.
—Sophocles, Antigone
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. A Wider Social Stage 14
2. Girls Will Be Boys: Gender, Envy,
and the Freudian Social Contract 50
3. Anna-Antigone: Experiments in
Group Upbringing 96
4. The Defense of Psychoanalysis/
The Anxiety of Politics 144
Conclusion: Ego Politics 197
Bibliography 233
Index 241

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Acknowledgments
This book could not have been written with-
out the original impulse that came from my own very early engagement with
the problem of “group upbringing” many years ago in a seminar taught by
Edward Steinberg, when I tangled for the first time with the question of
family relations beyond the norm and with the idea that normativity may,
quite possibly, not be founded in nature. Quite everything was changed after
such a realization. Elizabeth Stewart, Lyndsey Stonebridge, and Judith Surkis
have had a tremendous impact on the pages that follow. As rigorous thinkers,
they harness the demands of thought to a personal commitment to justice
that transcends private considerations. Because of this, they are capable of
transforming private despair into a “writing of anxiety” (the phrase is Lynd-
sey Stonebridge’s) and—in that very move and countering Freud’s claim
that women do not sublimate (his daughter Anna would prove otherwise)—
construct a figure of woman who therefore makes good on her claims. They
challenge all things: private, personal, and political, as well as normative and
transgressive. They therefore muddle me in the best of ways.
Three women have been crucial for my thinking about the institution-
alization of psychoanalysis. Elizabeth Weed, the long-time director of the
Pembroke Center for the Teaching and Research on Women at Brown
University, not only provided sustained and intelligent interventions into and
criticisms of the following chapters, she also gave me important insights into
the very problem of the institutionalization of psychoanalysis (and feminism)
and any other critical knowledge that may result from such institutionaliza-
tion. Ona Nierenburg introduced me to many of the materials that were
relevant to the problem of the history and the institutionalization of psy-
choanalysis. My daughter Anna Steinberg has been my toughest critic: she
demands absolute and continuous fairness, toward other women and in the
negotiations that may arise between living in an institution and thinking and
loving.
Charles Sheperdson offered not only an incisive reading of the Freudian
social contract, but also—quite coincidentally—spoke eloquently at Brown