Joyce McFadden is a certified psychoanalyst with an MSW from Columbia University and five years of postgraduate training. She’s a faculty member, training analyst and clinical supervisor at the Training and Research Institute for Self Psychology, faculty member of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, and author of the ongoing anonymous web-based Women’s Realities Study. She’s been practicing for over 20 years and has offices in Manhattan and East Hampton, NY.

All women are welcome to participate in the Women’s Realities Study which collects narratives of the realities of women’s lives, kept in their own words. To participate, visit www.womensrealities.com.

Blog Entries by Joyce McFadden

The Cultural Importance Of Oprah

2 Comments | Posted November 23, 2009 | 12:05 PM (EST)


I can't think of another figure on television who's done more to encourage us as a culture to rise to the highest common denominator.

MacNeil and Lehrer come to mind, but they began as a team and their purview was and is limited to news, whereas Winfrey's platform is broader...

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How To Survive The Soul Crushing Holidays

Posted November 20, 2009 | 04:02 PM (EST)


This is not for you if you're one of those people who thinks about the upcoming holidays with your family and considers how very lucky you are to have each other.

This is for the people who think of the holidays with their families and consider opiates.

Aahhh family.

Just...

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Sexism in America: Alive, Well, and Ruining Our Future

Posted October 8, 2009 | 03:02 PM (EST)


So let's say it's a random weekday morning and you're getting ready for your day while the morning news is on. Your ears perk up when you hear a story on the "Top Ten Companies" to work for if you're a mother or pregnant; and you think to yourself, "This...

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Bad Mommy: The Sexism Embedded in Women's Views on Breastfeeding and Childbirth

Posted September 11, 2009 | 11:34 AM (EST)


This summer one of my clients and one of my girlfriends gave birth. As they approached their due dates they described the same familiar upset other girlfriends and women in my practice had reported at the end of their pregnancies.

Well meaning women -- family members, girlfriends, colleagues or strangers...

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The SELF You Never Were

7 Comments | Posted August 17, 2009 | 11:10 AM (EST)


Re: the Kelly Clarkson SELF cover kerfuffle.

Before I address SELF, to be fair, I want to refer to Lauren Collins' article from the May 12, 2008 issue of The New Yorker entitled, "Pixel Prefect" because it has stayed with me since I read it.

In it Collins...

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Help Women and Girls Fight HIV/AIDS

2 Comments | Posted August 5, 2009 | 02:45 PM (EST)


Recently, I attended a discussion about HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Photojournalist Kristen Ashburn, who spent seven years chronicling the devastating impact of the disease in Malawi, shared photos from her book I Am Because We Are. Her work is a powerful call to action and a reminder that...

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Goodbye to More than DKNY

Posted July 16, 2009 | 01:00 PM (EST)


Does anyone else feel sad that the longstanding DKNY mural at Houston and Broadway is now gone?

Since September 11th I've been hoping they were going to leave it there forever.

I was always fond of that mural as a symbol of a woman not only making it, but soaring...

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Teaching Our Daughters About Sex: Sexual Mothers, Sexual Daughters

Posted April 10, 2009 | 06:17 PM (EST)


We as mothers are putting our own fears ahead of our daughters' well being, and we have to confront this crisis of confidence in order to offer our girls more grounding in sexual vitality than we were given by our own mothers.

In not giving them the sexual information they...

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Finally! FertilityAuthority.com!

Posted March 29, 2009 | 08:07 PM (EST)


As a therapist who works with women and men going through fertility treatments, and as a woman who went through them myself for ten years, I'm really pleased to announce the arrival of FertilityAuthority.com.

It can be an incredibly stressful and lonely experience to strive for a baby....

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HuffPost Readers! You Write this Blog on the Inauguration! Read How

Posted January 18, 2009 | 08:32 PM (EST)



As a celebratory bookend to what Huffington Post readers wrote when I gave them my blog in October to post why they would vote for Obama, I now give you my blog to write about your experience of this historic inauguration.

Instead of posting a comment to...

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What's With All This Pole Dancing?

Posted January 15, 2009 | 05:23 PM (EST)


In the past week, pole dancing classes have been covered by both Oprah and The Doctors in segments touting this activity's ability to help women unleash their sexual/sensual side.

I have to confess that when I think of all the ways women can embrace their sexual nature, spinning and...

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How to be a Better Mother in the New Year

Posted January 12, 2009 | 02:19 PM (EST)


There's always a spike in mother/daughter material in my practice every year at this time when adult daughters are ready to pull their hair out because their mothers have hurt them over the holidays.

A season unto itself, the barreling intensity around food and body image starts with the...

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The Other Woman Can't Break Up Your Marriage. It's Impossible.

Posted November 13, 2008 | 02:00 PM (EST)


If you have the misfortune to be heterosexual, as many of us do, you have enough on your plate just trying to bridge the divide on how differently men and women go about all things sexual. Women don't need the extra headache of watching their backs with their own gender....

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The Psychology Of Hope and Fear

Posted November 8, 2008 | 08:23 AM (EST)


Both hope and fear are great motivators, and they both have the capacity to promote growth in us, but hope creates space in the mind and heart. Fear, more often than not, restricts it.

Just think of how you feel in your own body when you're afraid - you tense...

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Winners: Top Ten HuffPost Reader Blogs for Obama

Posted October 30, 2008 | 12:19 PM (EST)


To everyone who submitted a blog sharing why you'll vote for Obama: You blew me away. Thank you to each of you.

Here are the ten that moved me the most, listed in the order in which they were posted:

Citizenoftheworld
Susie 1776
CBOXX
...

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HuffPost Readers: You Write This Blog on Obama. Read How.

Posted October 23, 2008 | 03:53 PM (EST)



As McCain and Obama approach the finish line, I give you my blog to write why you'll vote for Obama.

Instead of posting a comment to my writing as you usually would, simply write your own thoughts on Obama and submit them. As the comments come...

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Meet 425 of My Obama Sisters from the East End

Posted September 29, 2008 | 09:05 AM (EST)


Something special happened in my community last weekend, and I'm posting this as an invitation for other communities out there to consider doing something similar.

Over an earlier dinner, some men and women had been discussing the truly surreal selection and ascendance of Sarah Palin, when cinematographer, Philippe Cheng, said...

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From the Day Terrorists Attacked My Neighborhood to Now

Posted September 11, 2008 | 07:15 PM (EST)


I've never felt more female than the day I gave birth to my daughter. And I have never felt more human than the day I stood with my neighbors and watched the Twin Towers across the street from our homes burn and fall.

I never thought I would be in...

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Palin: One Woman Forward, All Women Back

Posted September 9, 2008 | 02:55 PM (EST)


It's heart wrenching to me that in this day and age, the human rights eloquence of a woman's right to choose still isn't fully embraced by the very gender it serves.

The right to choose is so fundamentally simple in its respect of each person's ability to protect and live...

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Women Who Look Like They Had Work Done

Posted August 18, 2008 | 07:55 AM (EST)


August 3rd's New York Magazine cover story by Jonathan Van Meter was on "The NEW New Face" women are buying from their plastic surgeons and dermatologists.

His article highlights the surreal visuals we now associate with youth and beauty, and the procedures women undergo...

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