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“Love means the totality of infant and child care, that which facilitates maturational processes. It includes hate”
Mothering and Ambivalence is a thought-provoking look at current thinking in psychotherapy on mothering, and indeed fathering, putting the discussion in the context of the psychodynamics of ambivalence.
What exactly is meant by ambivalence? And can an understanding of this ‘complex and contradictory state of mind’ (Parker, chap. 2, p. 17) help those of us working with families in trouble? The psychoanalytically-informed thinking in this book, particularly when accompanied by detailed clinical descriptions, make it a useful read for many, including therapists working with parents and their children, and social workers and psychiatrists who make decisions based on a mother's capacity to care for her children.
This is a fascinating and important field of work, and reading this book is like looking down a microscope, starting far away and then focusing down on different aspects of the field in question. The beginning is a ‘bird's-eye view’ of the theoretical and political background to psychotherapy and mothering, which may leave the clinician wanting more substance and clarity. This arrives in the form of an honest and informative description of a counselling service for disturbed women with dependent children (Mayne & Best, chap. 8) which anyone working in this area will identify with and learn from. Further focusing down leads into the inner world of an 8-year-old girl in psychotherapy which engagingly illustrates the concepts involved in ‘maternal ambivalence’ and offers a hopeful picture of its potential resolution (Owens, chap. 9).
Rozsika Parker argues that the mother who can know her ambivalent feelings towards her child can make creative reparation in relation to her baby. She makes the point that motherhood is an important time for developmental change in the mother, not just in the infant and child. It is the dynamic of this r