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Let me begin by saying that The Monster Within is so good that I had a hard time figuring out what to say about it. It is a compassionate, clearly written book dealing with the topic of maternal ambivalence, which is as universal as sibling rivalry (or, some would say, the Oedipus complex), if less universally acknowledged. The author, Barbara Almond, addresses this topic using two types of material. The first includes clinical vignettes from her practice, and a few of her own personal family-and friend-related observations; the other uses so-called “case stories”— essentially applied psychoanalysis—in which she uses examples from classic and popular literary works. The concept of this book arose, she writes in her preface, out of her clinical and personal experience as a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and mother, and her growing awareness of the ubiquity and importance of the phenomenon of maternal ambivalence and its darker side, whether accepted or denied.
This book had a long gestation, according to Dr. Almond, who was kind enough to speak with me as I prepared to write this review. She conceptualized it as a book directed at nonprofessionals, but it was not welcomed with open arms by the commercial publishing world—in fact, it met with considerable resistance, presumably because of its topic. Ultimately, it was published by an academic press. In fact, I think it is a highly accessible book that welcomes a lay audience into the analytic frame in a warm, nurturing, and, let me say, maternal way. Dr. Almond told me, however, the book has been more popular among the psychoanalytic community than the lay readership for whom it was intended. Although it should have been a runaway bestseller with every literate mother (unsurprisingly, it was not), its warm reception among analysts makes sense. It is extremely enjoyable to read a book that gives such clear, jargon-free definitions of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic terms and ideas. I think Almond's clarity is mainly a fu