What Do Mothers Want?: Developmental Perspectives, Clinical Challenges

299 Pages·2005·4.761 MB·English

by  Sheila Feig Brown

What Do Mothers Want?
Psychoanalysis
In a New Key
Book Series
Donnel B. Stern, Ph.D., Series Editor
Volume 1
Clinical Values: Emotions
That Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment
Sandra Buechler
Volume 2
What Do Mothers Want?
Developmental Perspectives,
Clinical Challenges
Sheila Feig Brown
Volume 3
Crime and Dissociation:
An Analysis of Violent Narrations
Abby Stein
Volume 4
Wounded by Reality
Ghislaine Boulanger
Copyrighted Material
WHAT DO MOTHERS WANT?
Developmental Perspectives,
Clinical Challenges
edited by
Sheila Feig Brown
THE ANALYTIC PRESS
2005 Hillsdale, NJ London
©2005 by The Analytic Press, Inc., Publishers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in any
form—photocopy, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other means—without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by The Analytic Press, Inc., Publishers
Editorial Offices:
101 West Street
Hillsdale, NJ 07642
www.analyticpress.com
Designed and typeset by EvS Communication Networx, Point Pleasant, NJ
Index by Leonard Rosenbaum, Washington, DC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
What do mothers want? developmental perspectives, clinical challenges /
edited by Sheila Feig Brown.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88163-400-X
1. Motherhood—Psychological aspects—Congresses. 2. Mothers—
Psychology—Congresses. 3. Marginality, Social—Congresses.
I. Brown, Sheila Feig. II. Gloria Friedman Memorial Conference:
William Alanson White Institute.
HQ759.W455 2005
155.6'463—dc22
2005043643
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For
Matthew,
Robin and Benjamin,
Joshua, Alexandra, Ethan and Jesse

Contents
Contributors ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Editor's Introduction xv
SHEILA FEIG BROWN
I. What Mothers Want and Need
1 The Psychic Landscape of Mothers 3
DANIEL N. STERN
2 Loving and Hating Mothers and Daughters: 19
Thoughts on the Role of Their Physicality
ROSEMARY H. BALSAM
3 What Mothers and Babies Need: 37
The Maternal Third and Its Presence in Clinical Work
JESSICA BENJAMIN
4 What Fathers Do and How They Do It 55
JAMES M. HERZOG
5 What Do Mothers and Grandmothers Know and Want? 69
SARA RUDDICK
6 What Is a Mother? 87
Gay and Lesbian Perspectives on Parenting
JACK DRESGHER, DEBORAH F. GLAZER, LEE GRESPI,
AND DAVID SCHWARTZ
7 It's A(p)Parent: 105
New Family Narratives Are Needed
ADRIA E. SCHWARTZ
vii
viii Contents
8 What Does a Mother Want and Need 115
from Her Child's Therapist?
DANIEL GENSLER AND ROBIN SHAFRAN
II. Women's Bodies: Choices and Dilemmas
9 "Too Late": 131
Ambivalence about Motherhood, Choice, and Time
NANCY J. CHODOROW
10 Pregnancy 151
SHARON KOFMAN AND RUTH IMBER
11 Facts and Fantasies about Infertility 171
ALLISON ROSEN
12 Layers upon Layers: 193
The Complicated Terrain of Eating Disorders
and the Mother-Child Relationship
JEAN PETRUCELLI AND CATHERINE STUART
III. Pulling It All Together
13 Listen to My Words: 213
Maternal Life in Colors and Cycles of Time
JANE LAZARRE
14 To Be Partners and Parents: 223
The Challenge for Couples Who Are Parents
CAROLYN PAPE COWAN AND PHILIP A. COWAN
Author Index 249
Subject Index 255
Contributors
Rosemary H. Balsam, M.D. is Training and Supervising Analyst,
Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, New Haven, GT;
Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale Medical School; Yale
University Department of Student Health; Book Section Editor, Jour
nal of the American Psychoanalytic Association; Editorial Boards:
Psychoanalytic Quarterly, American Imago.
Jessica Benjamin, Ph.D. is Faculty, Supervisor, New York Univer
sity Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy;
Founding Board Member, International Association for Relational
Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Author, Bonds of Love; Like
Subjects, Like Objects; Shadow of the Other; Associate Editor, Psy
choanalytic Dialogues.
Sheila Feig Brown, Ph.D. (ed.) is Supervising Analyst, Teaching
Faculty, and former Fellow, William Alanson White Institute; and
past president, William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Society.
Nancy J. Chodorow, Ph.D. is Faculty, San Francisco Psychoanalytic
Institute; Clinical Faculty, Psychology, Professor of Sociology Emer-
ita, University of California, Berkeley; Author, The Reproduction of
Mothering; Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory; Femininities,
Masculinities, Sexualities; The Power of Feelings: Personal Mean
ing in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture; Book Review Editor,
International Journal of Psychoanalysis; Associate Editor, Studies
in Gender and Sexuality.
Carolyn Pape Cowan, Ph.D. is Adjunct Professor of Psychology,
Codirector, Becoming a Family Project, Schoolchildren and Their
Families Projects, University of California, Berkeley; Coeditor,
Fatherhood Today; Coauthor, When Partners Become Parents:
The Big Life Change for Couples; Coeditor, The Family Context of
Parenting in Children's Adaptation to School; Fatherhood Today.
ix