From Publishers Weekly
Lupton (co-author of The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation ) doesn't quite deliver on her claim that she "fully examines . . . the impact of menstruation on a theory of sexual difference." For instance, she says that menstrual blood "separates and defines women" without asking what it means to define women and sexual difference in terms of something that is not lifelong. However, she offers a useful overview of how menstruation has been addressed and--more often--suppressed in psychoanalytic discourse. Most interesting is her discussion of Freud and Wilhelm Fliess (particularly their faulty treatment of Emma Eckstein's dysmenorrhea) and her argument that the ultimate Freud-Fliess split led to a deemphasis of menstruation in Freud's theory, a deemphasis that influenced his dream interpretation and rejection of the seduction theory. Lupton considers the writings of some male analysts, particularly Claude Dagmar Daly, who theorized a "menstruation complex" that precedes and forms the "nucleus" of the Oedipus complex, as well as the writings of female analysts who, Lupton says, are inclined to "undervalue" menstruation and are unlikely to challenge phallocentric assumptions about gender.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
