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Barbara Almond, a practicing psychoanalyst, has written an interesting and informative book about a hitherto forbidden topic. Maternal ambivalence is an inescapable part of the human experience. It is set into place most likely when the first thoughts of pregnancy arise, through conception, gestation, childbirth, and the life of the child. And even before, it must be part of the little girl's fantasied child, when playing with dolls or dreaming of Daddy's baby.
Maternal ambivalence does not disappear, ever. This is less of a problem than are the denial and negation of these ordinary, complicated feelings. And sometimes, in part because of their rejection by the mother herself and those around her, these emotions rise to another level of meaning and action; Andrea Yates could very well be the result.
Almond leads the reader through a skilled narration of the many complex scenarios with which mothers, would-be mothers, and never-to-be mothers are confronted as they make their decisions and work their way through the maze of motherhood. Her book is essentially a primer of psychoanalytic thought and language. Almond exhibits deft skill in presenting her convictions in plain language with no watering down of her ideas. She is intent on introducing readers to a world of thought presumably outside their usual discourse.
We encounter patients, characters in literature, movie stars, friends, and family as Almond invites her readers to consider with her the whys and wherefores of the experience of mothering. Her most informative contribution to the lay reader lies in her ability to describe, through example and analogy, the painful and confusing experience of ambivalence, with its hydra-headed complexity. She also educates the reader about the vagaries of projection, identification, projective identification, and denial. By taking these topics seriously and at the same time respecting her readers, Almond has written essentially a textbook for the lay audience. In expecting them