Abstract

This work is a very personal study aimed primarily at a Jungian audience and written from a feminist standpoint. Its objective is two-fold: to explore the phenomenon/phenomena of lesbian experience and to come to some understanding of it from a feminist Jungian framework ; and to develop and demonstrate a research that holds the tension between theory and experience in a way appropriate to Jungian and feminist commitments. To do this, the study brings together four fields of study: Jungian psychology , feminism , Gadamerian hermeneutics , and lesbian studies . ;The researcher's 'prejudices' are 'foregrounded' and the study's methodology is developed in detail prior to undertaking six interviews with women who either self-identify as lesbians or who see themselves to be engaged currently in lesbian relationships. Each was asked the question: "What is it like for you to love another woman?" Their responses were constructed by the researcher into narrative representations which include commentary and reflections by the researcher. ;Since this study is not intended to 'prove' or disprove any formal hypothesis about lesbian experience, its significance is to be found in the researcher's 'findings' concerning the subject matter: namely, that when a woman finds herself loving another woman she is often responding to a psychological urge to individuate, a psychological instinct which propels her forward in spite of internal conflicts and/or external opposition--thus demonstrating a profoundly-experienced capacity for 'soul-making.'