Presented by
ASSOCIATION OF JUNGIAN ANALYSTS
While conducting doctoral research in social science on late motherhood, two analytical engagements with the feminine came to my attention as evidence of a patriarchal bias toward the realm of womanhood. Whether her name was anima, the unconscious or mother, the views of the analytical fathers appeared to be perpetuating a social problem continuing in current times. Across affective fields and narratives on late procreative desire, buried in the Word Association Experiment and held in dream journals, was the memory of a male sibling who had enjoyed primacy of place in the parental home over the daughter. Taking a cue from Kalsched’s psycho-spiritual approach to the ways in which development, in particular feminine development is interrupted, my talk tracks one particular research Participant’s ambivalent relationship to becoming a mother, the lengths she went to, including changing her sexual identity, to create what she had missed from early life: a family.
