Mothering: Toward a New Psychoanalytic Construction

by Silvia Vegetti Finzi, Silvia Vegetti Finzi

Psychoanalytic theory has long neglected a differentiated analysis of motherhood as a central concept of female development. In this book, Italian analyst Sylvia 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\m-\the productive power it implies and the interactive attitude it requires\m-\and its exclusive realization, in child rearing, which is largely socially induced.

196 pages, Hardcover

First published December 22, 1995