Mothering Toward A New Psychoanalytic Construction

Psychoanalytic theory has long neglected a differentiated analysis of motherhood as a central concept of female development. In this book, Italian analyst Silvia Vegetti Finzi examines the difficult process that transforms a girl into a mother, breaking with the traditional view that has used the apparent obviousness and naturalness of motherhood to mask the fact that mothering is a complex interweaving of internal processes and socially defined roles. Integrating ideas from a range of disciplines, her analysis makes a powerful distinction between the capacity for giving birth - the productive power it implies and the interactive attitude it requires - and its exclusive realization in child rearing, which is largely socially induced. Finzi also shows how women have come to identify and internalize the repressive, socially defined role of motherhood, which can unconsciously transform a desire for children into a potentially debilitating need for a woman to be a mother in a male-defined world. In addition to her in-depth case analyses, Finzi traces the history of ideas about women from classical Greece to the frontiers of current reproductive technology, providing a thorough and thoughtful examination of the construct of motherhood. In this exploration, she takes the reader through ancient myths and rituals to explore a time - and an early consciousness - when women believed in their capacity to generate by themselves. She then describes the potential that women's capacity for creativity offers both in giving birth to children and in other life projects. Stressing the need for a redefinition of the role of today's women in society, she recreates an empowering image of motherhood for all women.