Freud, Females, Childbirth, and Dissidence: Margarete Hilferding, Karen Horney, and Otto Rank

Abstract

These three early psychoanalysts, who differed in important ways from Freud, each tried to shift his fundamental beliefs about women's bodies in basic developmental theory. This paper illustrates this point by elaborating their materials concerning the centrality of childbirth. One thematic aspect of Freud's disruptive fights with colleagues lay in his loyalty to phallocratic certainties. These problems still affect us, a century later, even in today's clinically pluralistic climate.