Women shaping their destinies: Psychoanalytic perspectives and contemporary clinical portraits

Using two case examples of women from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, this article focuses on three central themes to explore women's fears and conflicts about success: the function of masochism as a protective device; the awareness and use of the transference-countertransference to inform both the patient's and analyst's relationship to the past; and the importance of both positive and negative influences in the cultural center. By attending to their own relationships to success, analysts can resonate with their women patients, promoting a more emancipated self-definition and mutual reparativeness.