ABSTRACT
In Chapter 10, Powell discusses the case of Elizabeth from both personal and clinical perspectives, with a particular emphasis on the unique challenges for minority women whose stories are often excluded in psychoanalytic literature. Powell recognizes, and calls into question, the compromises and sacrifices women, particularly women of color, often make in order to recognize, and be recognized for, their full potential. She also takes up the failure of the psychoanalytic profession, and our society at large, to adequately address racial, ethnic and gender biases as they apply to female ambition. Drawing from her clinical, as well as her personal experience as an African American psychoanalyst, Powell notes the ways in which a woman’s pursuit of her ambitions may be dismissed, objectified or hijacked by the surrounding culture and its biased patriarchy. Powell highlights the difficulty women of color experience around identification, and the capacity to ask for help, advice and nurturance, as they attempt to move forward – especially in a male dominated field like science. Powell notes the pressures on women, like Elizabeth, to collude with existing power structures is a self-betrayal. She suggests that Elizabeth’s treatment involved a process of rediscovering self and voice.
