Ontology of „as if" Identification in Helene Deutsch’s Theory: The Birth of Women’s Theory or Probing the Psychoanalytical Borders

Abstract

The article presents a new interpretation of works written by Helene Deutsch, Polish psychoanalyst, one of the closest colleagues of Sigmund Freud and the precursor of women’s psychoanalysis. Beginning with the social and cultural history of psychoanalysis, I try to (re)argue and (re)read the works of female analysts in Freud’s movement, especially those by Deutsch. In the article I propose the unfamiliar and new possibility of studying and writing about women’s psychoanalysis. One approach to the work of Polish analysts is to understand it not only as a clinical theory but also as a literature and philosophy. Working on a famous theory of „as if‖ identification, developed by Deutsch, in the light of the concept of plasticity proposed by French philosopher Catherine Malabou, the article is a contribution to a new method in reading and understanding theory as well as non-clinical works by Polish analysts through the categories of identity, memory and plasticity.