[11] Following her PhD, Chodorow received clinical training at the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Psychology (1984–86) and the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute (1985–1993).
[18] Chodorow also uses Sigmund Freud's theory to argue that differences between men and women are largely due to capitalism and the absent father.
[19] She acknowledges economic changes occurring around 2003 and their psychological impact on rearing both sexes with regard to shared parenting.
This process is more complex for female children, who identify strongly with the mother and attempt to make the father the new love object, which hinders their ego formation.
While the initial bond with the mother applies to both sexes, boys break away earlier to identify with their fathers, thus perpetuating the mother-daughter identification.
[18] Chodorow connects the contrasting dyadic and triadic first love experiences to the social construction of gender roles, citing the universal degradation of women in culture, cross-cultural patterns in male behavior, and marital strain in Western society after Second Wave feminism.
"[24] Chodorow argues that masculinity is learned consciously in the absence of the father, while femininity is embedded in the ongoing relationship with the mother.
[17] In Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory, Chodorow argues that men's suppression of their need for love leads to an inability to tolerate others expressing that need.
[25] She links this to Freudian theory by arguing that men pay a price for detachment from their mothers and repression of their feminine selves.
[25] "I part company with most American psychoanalysts in my reliance on object relations theory and in that I have always seen psychoanalysis as an interpretive enterprise (not medical nor scientific).
I differ from many academic humanists in seeing psychoanalysis as a social science that is theoretically grounded but, nonetheless, empirically infused study of lives."
In The Power of Feelings, Chodorow addresses the relation between culture and individual identity, the role of unconscious fantasy, and the epistemology of psychoanalytic theories.
[27] She combines theoretical approaches, focusing on psychoanalysis and feminist theory, while acknowledging their shortcomings regarding gender psychology.