Fodor attempts to relate parturition and its attendant anxiety to the unconscious memory of the trauma of the mother's own birth. The frequency of this fear is stressed. The common occurrence of miscarriage is attributed to this anxiety; postpartum complications and illness, to the guilt engendered. These theories, reminiscent of Rank, will be especially interesting to his followers,

though they are not borne out by anthropological research which stresses cultural attitudes toward childbirth as the important factors in the fear of it. The paper is an excerpt from Fodor's recent publication, The Search for the Beloved.