Analytic Work Concerning Motherhood

Analysis during pregnancy offers an invaluable opportunity to rework incompleted issues and to consolidate the previous work. The period of pregnancy being one of biological readiness and emotional anticipation, effects a disequilibrium which could increase motivation for inner change. The configuration of baby-in-mother evokes old conflicts, identifications, and projections. Thus, the analytic work is enhanced by the presence of the fetus upon whom repetitive shadows from the past can be more clearly discerned. The fetus is both an object but also a subject, the pregnant woman herself who identifies with the baby that she was, but gradually may delineate that she can give what her baby requires. Beyond the desire for a child, the pregnant mother has ideals regarding herself as nurturer of her child, and these ideals can play an important part in her motivation for treatment.

The young woman I wish to discuss, Sarah, utDized treatment to become comfortable as a mother. After seven years of analysis, she was considering termination when a miscarriage and then pregnancy provided the impetus to continue. The feelings of loss, the regression resulting from the miscarriage evoked fresh transference configurations and enabled us to correct the parental images which obstructed her sense of herself as a woman who could be fulfilled.

I was fortunate to be able to treat Sarah, for she was intelligent, articulate, became interested in unconscious material, and her motivation to get well eventually included becoming comfortable with motherhood.