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Is the breast taken into the mouth the same thing as both breasts as they are seen by the child? Taking the breast into the mouth by no means excludes the possibility of erotic pleasure for both parties as has been shown by a number of studies which suggest that the breast is no longer only the signifier of a so-called ‘partial’ object. This is what the iconography in sacred and profane love** confirms.
To speak of the breast, when one is a psychoanalyst, is to evoke oral fixations, often to think in terms of the theories of Melanie Klein or of her successors. But it is also, and most frequently, to neglect this female organ itself, which constitutes for both sexes a source of pleasure. My experience with babies and their mothers has frequently borne this out, for breast-feeding is a source of enjoyment equally for both parties.
First of all 1 shall present in some detail a case history which poses certain problems in this regard. I shall then try, in this paper, to bring together into a more unified concept the breast as a symbol of maternity, and the breasts as an object of lust for some and a source of pleasure for others.
Douce is a baby who will be seen twice, at five months and at eleven months, with sleeping problems: she cannot go to sleep except with her mother's breast in her mouth.
Of the mother, known to the observer, it is sufficient to say that she has had a child by a father who has refused paternity. She wanted to prove that she would have a child who would grow up free and who would choose her own time for taking the breast. It is important to bear in mind at this point that the maternal grandmother died of breast cancer.
The two consultations were each preceded by a long letter, which the