You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The title of this book reminded me of the story about the old army sergeant who had chided a soldier for beating a mule and advised him to just talk to it nicely. He said he would demonstrate; he picked up a plank and struck the mule sharply across its rump. When the soldier asked, “Aren't you beating the mule?” the sergeant said, “Well, first you have to get its attention.”
The author wants to be sure she has our attention, because she has a point to make. She probably expects that our reaction to the title will demonstrate her thesis that the idealization of motherhood has interfered with our observations of sexual perversions in women. When perversions occur in mothers, they lead to child abuse; and the child will develop perversions and repeat the process in the next generation.
The book jacket gives the author's credentials as a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and her clinical background as a clinical tutor at the Portman Clinic in London, which offers dynamic psychotherapy in cases of deviant sexuality and criminality. Welldon also credits as information sources her activity in women's groups and conversations with professional women in England and on the continent. Although she writes authoritatively about psychoanalytic theory there is no mention of her academic or psychoanalytic education or affiliations.