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Woman and Hatred, the third book of the psychoanalyst Elina Reenkola, continues her explorations of the female psyche. Naisen verhottu sisin (1997, translated into English as The Veiled Female Core in 2002) can be seen as an introductory work on the theme. Her second work, Intohimoinen nainen-psykoanalyyttisia tutkielmia halusta, rakkaudesta ja häpeästä [The Passionate Woman: Psychoanalytic Studies of Desire, Love and Shame] examines Freud's basic idea that the ego grows out of the body, and emphasizes woman as a subject who, starting from when she is a little girl, does psychic work to give meaning to her body.
Although the subtitle of the present book is Aggression as a Resource, Reenkola says in her Preface that she is trying to shed light on the dark sides of the female soul. I find this problematic, or at least challenging, since children are often on the receiving end of the darkest sides of female aggression, which easily leads to the wish to assign guilt. Sometimes mothers are blamed, sometimes psychoanalysts are accused of blaming mothers. In my view, the most important contribution of Reenkola's latest book is precisely its ability to open up the psychodynamics of these painful settings without being accusatory or assigning blame. This open-mindedness is crucial in helping us to understand the psychic distress and paralysis caused by unidentified and untreated female hatred. It is comforting to know that attempts are being made to survey the psychological well-being of pregnant women and small children and that help is already available for early attachment disorders. We need to be able to approach and understand the vicissitudes of unidentified hatred, especially when it is hidden behind idealized images of women.
Elina Reenkola writes in a reader-friendly way so readers do not necessarily need to be familiar with psychoanalytic concepts or be well versed in the book's themes in order to understand what they are reading. And indeed, another of the text's s