Childbirth and Being Born 2024, November
Zsofia, Szekely
EDITORIAL – WHAT DOES THE MOTHER WANT? Imágó Budapest 2024/1.1
“In this issue, we pursue the theme of perinatal psychoanalysis. Interestingly, when we begin to talk about mothers and maternal experience, the intense period around the birth of the child is very strongly represented – the understanding of the maternal experience cannot be separated from the initial mother-baby unit. The question ‘what does the baby want’ is as relevant as the question ‘what does the mother want’ – of course we cannot always talk about both at the same time, so let us immerse ourselves in understanding the mother experience. For at least a hundred years psychoanalytic thought has been preoccupied with the question of what the woman wants, following the legacy of Freud, but we never seem to have asked the question, ‘What does the mother want? In this issue, we paraphrase Freud’s famous question and try to explore the mother’s perspective in psychoanalysis…”
Ornella Piccini
The technocratic paradigm and the loss of pleasure and tenderness
“In this paper I will describe the impact of technology on the ability to establish relationships. I refer in particular to technology applied to women’s bodies, reproductive systems and childbearing.
I addressed this topic in my previous article entitled ‘The mother’s body, the role of pleasure and the traumatic risk’ (2021) in which I attempted to describe the phenomenon of the excessive medicalization of motherhood and its effects on the mother-child relationship. I described how the medical procedures involved in caring for women during pregnancy and childbirth have a considerable impact on their physical and psychic well-being, in particular how the continuous disregard of bodily pleasure (the oxytocin system) can affect the reciprocal regulation between mother and child and consequently the attachment…”
Zsofia Szekely
“We, women, are dealing with our birth through all our lives” – trauma narratives in birth stories
“In my paper I present some psychoanalytical interpretations of birth stories.
Childbirth takes place in the context of professional healthcare, as women are rarely giving birth alone. Characteristics of the helping relationships, quality, dynamics and communication are crucial to understand the psychic course of birth. Childbirth is one of the most intensive experiences for both women and child. Deep and raw experience of the feminine, the body, the self or intimacy and taboos. Also it can be interpreted as a possible initiation, a healing and self-healing process also. In most cases, birth takes place in the context of impersonal healthcare in hospitals, where medicalization and technocratic environment is dominant. These circumstances are inevitable consequencies of the evolution of medical technologies, and have negative impact both on birthing women and on professionals…”
Julianna Vamos
Birth reconsidered. Clearing old scripts to make room for new perspectives
“We three: Carlo Bonomi (Italie), Fergal Brady (Irland) and myself (France) came together to question some taken-for-granted knowledge in our analytical standpoints, and clinical approach. My field to present today is the perinatal world, new-borns’ resources, the Budapest school’s inspired intersubjectivity, and how I see its importance for contemporary parenting. My work in the infant clinic impacts on my analytical practice with adults.
One of the privileges of working in a maternity ward is that it seems to be one of the last remaining places where the word “sacred”, within our secular culture, still has meaning: I have been working for the past 23 years in “Les Bluets” a progressive and innovative Parisian maternity clinic, with 3,200 births per year. It is for women for low-risk pregnancies with the hope for a natural birth (as natural as possible).
An environment in which Sacred moments can happen needs to be created and their impact preserved. In my field if there is enough time for pre-natal consultations, I would say that there is preparative motion towards a state of mind for the pregnant woman : the “reverie” to approach this deeply mutative moment of and for life – birth…”