This is a book about oral longing and oral rage. The author, out of his experiences in a long career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, has come to the conclusion that oral ambivalence plays a far greater role in human psychology than is generally recognized. Children start out in life, Eisenbud maintains, dominated by the illusion of an ever-present, ever-flowing, bountiful breast. The child's mother is expected to be there whenever she is wanted, lovingly ready to devote herself to meeting the child's every need.

The realization that this is only an illusion, that this ideal and idealizing expectation is not realistic and is destined to go unmet, has fateful consequences. It is inevitable that there will be frustrations, disappointments, and failure to shatter the primordial, self-serving oral fantasy of maternal perfection. This leads, Eisenbud