The political dimension of motherhood
Maria Helena Rego Junqueira
Abstract: The article is a reflection about the peculiar spot of the mother within the oedipal triangle, within
the triumvirate father-mother-son. Fragments of Greek mythology are used to investigate the mythical
ways of the relationship with the mother and the approximation with the oedipal complex. It seeks to
capture the unfolding of the oedipal situation into the subjective process. The father’s place is seen as the
difference, which discriminates mother-child, instituting the symbolic order. There is an interplay of roles
within the original relationship that allows the consideration of the political dimension of motherhood.
Keywords: paternal; desire; culture; mythology; feminine.
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The war and the disavowal of the feminine: Trojan’s paradigm
Ignácio Alves Paim Filho
Valéria Quadros
Abstract: The article discusses the reasons of war through the reading and confronting of Homer’s Iliad
and Freud’s conception of the disavowal of the feminine (1937). The authors postulate the existence of an
originary feminine disposition bounded to the origins of the psychic subject. They also describe the fate of
the feminine in the psychic: to be repressed in a first moment by the action of primary repression, and in a
second moment, to be disavowed by the advent of the secondary repression. The war, as the authors intend
to demonstrate, is a dramatization of the feminine’s disavowal.
Keywords: disavowal; feminine; war; repression.
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The myth of glorified maternity
Estela V. Welldon, Londres
Abstract: According to traditional psychoanalytical theories perversion is an exclusive male psychopathology.
The author challenges this view and argues that women express their perverse attitudes not only
through but also towards their bodies, very often in a self-destructive way, such as syndromes of self-injury
associated with biological or hormonal disorders affecting the reproductive functioning. In other words,
perversion in women is not so clearly and exclusively connected with the expression of hostility and release
of anxiety through just one organ as it is with men.
Motherhood as perversion is conceptualized using her clinical material collected over 2 decades from the
Tavistock-Portman clinics. She observes that the main difference between male and female perverse action
lies in the aim. Where as in men the act is aimed at an external part-object, in women it is against
themselves: either against their bodies or against objects of their own creation – that is, their babies. In
both respects, bodies and babies are treated as part-objects. Motherhood as perversion is the result of at
least a three generational trauma. There are basic differences between male and female perversions which
are clearly classified.
Keywords: Perversions; motherhood; female psychopathology; trauma; domestic power; body.
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Between too much and too little: the squareness of the circle of paternity
Régine Prat, França
Abstract: Parenthood is focused here as an identity crisis resulting from the trauma of the perception of
the total dependence on the part of the baby on the parents. Parental psychism therefore supposes a deep
mutation. In this article the focus will be on the baby’s needs as far as their contradictory aspects: on one
hand the need to be protected and contained in a firma manner, and at the same time, the need to be
allowed to have his own experiences, without restraining his autonomy. The squareness of the circle or the
mission impossible of parenthood will be explored in its aspects of an experience common to all parents, as
well as its pathology. The development of the attention skills allows ways of resolution for the paradox, and
it reveals itself to be particularly useful as a therapeutic tool.
Keywords: attention; dependence; post-partum depression; parenthood.
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Divine Jouissance. Feminine narcissism and mystics
Juan Eduardo Tesone, Buenos Aires
Abstract: The discours of mystics point to a huge paradox. Mystics pay the price of being dispossessed of the
Self. They live only through the emanation of the object, and are illuminated by its blaze...which (scarcely)
veils the bodily pleasure of their ecstasy. Mysthics thus experience jouissance... without sin and without
reproach, sheltered from view in the confiness of the monastery. Might we not perhaps consider that the
discours of mystics in fact points to the supplementary jouissance of woman, veiled by religious legitimacy
and otherwise inexpressible, at the risk of succumbing to the same fate as Tiresias ?
Keywords: love; mystic; narcissism; feminine; jouissance; divine.
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Counter-transference reactions and the analyst’s and analysand’s gender
Teresa Lartigue de Vives, México
Juan Vives Rocabert, México
Abstract: Having as a reference point an holistic or global conception of counter-transference, the paper
brings up the issue regarding the analyst’s gender, in what it refers to his/her real person dimension and
discusses the opposition contained in this real dimension as compared to what is held as one of the central
objectives of psychoanalysis: the scrutiny of the patient’s subjectivity, of his/her psychic reality. The author
distinguishes two types of transferential comprehensions, one as a defense mechanism (regardless of the
gender) and the other in its repetitive aspect or yet, as depository of internal objects (where the patient’s as
well as the analyst’s gender are particularly relevant, especially in the re-living of Oedipal issues). The author
makes a brief review of gender differences in respect to its effects in dealing with erotic and eroticized
transference, to the treatment of homosexual patients, the transferential interpretations, in the same way
as counter-transferential dreams, ideological aspects, prejudices and/or stereotypes which may function as
blind spots which interfere in the psychoanalytic treatment. Hence the importance of self-analysis and the
maintenance of discussion groups for psychoanalysts dealing with these issues.
Keywords: transference; counter-transference; gender differences.
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Primal Femininity – Structural Femininity
Marian Alizade, Buenos Aires
Abstract: Primal femininity undergrounds the first sensual identifications and dynamics.The mother develops
with her-his child a special passive femininity where, following Freud´s words (1905- p. 792) takes
place “a kind of orgasm”. This primal surrender is the first outline of femininity in every human being.
Rejection of femininity has strong cultural roots. The fourth complemental serie (Alizade, 2004) stresses the
importance of cultural factors in the psyche. Structural femininity is the consequence of the end of the Oedipus
complex and builds up in women psyche both, the lone psychic space and the non-maternal psychic
space. This paper considers both spaces and shows its effects in women development and mental health.
Keywords: structural femininity; oedipus complex; non-maternal psychic space; lone psychic space; fourth
complemental serie.
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