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Experience of maternal absence manifests in a variety of ways and this book explores a selection of its emotional, psychical, and somatic consequences as they relate to an individual's relationship with their body, psychic-emotional internal life, and intimate relationships.
This book is not about mothers, but how individuals handle the trauma of mothers they have not had. Spanning backgrounds such as the collective child-rearing method of the kibbutz in Israel through to the possible difficulties of children who are parented by single parents, born out of sperm or egg donation, and adults who have suffered chronic sexual abuse, Shapira-Berman observes the precarious position of the analyst and the tension between the acts of witnessing and participating in client interventions. Espousing the values of authenticity and creativity, this text concludes with a reconfiguration of the roles of faith and trust within psychoanalysis and offers hope to those on their therapeutic journeys.
This book will be a valuable resource for psychotherapists, as well as for various undergraduate and postgraduate studies in object relations, childhood trauma, sexual trauma and clinical therapy.
List of contents
1. Introduction 2. A 'Mother-of-One's-Own' - An Analytic View of Object-Relationships in Adult Patients Raised in the Kibbutz 3. 'Love Thy Work': From Having No Mother to Being Everybody's Mother - Re-Examining the Professional Choice of Women Psychotherapists Who Grew Up in the Kibbutz 4. That Which Was Not - Some Thoughts Regarding Oedipus's Modern Conflicts 5. The 'Choice' between Illusory Life and Acceptance of the Death of One's Love Object 6. Psychosomatic Symptoms as Physical Dreams: Emotional Experiences given Expression through the Body 7. When Hunger Strikes - Re-thinking Kafka's 'A Hunger Artist' in light of Winnicott's Theory of the Psyche-Soma 8. What do Faith and Trust have to do with Psychoanalysis?
About the author
Ofrit Shapira-Berman, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst and a professor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a member of the Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She maintains a private practice in Tel Aviv.
Summary
Experience of maternal absence manifests in a variety of ways and this book explores a selection of its emotional, psychical, and somatic consequences as they relate to an individual’s relationship with their body, psychic-emotional internal life, and intimate relationships.
