Psychoanalysis and Maternal Absence

Experience of maternal absence manifests in a variety of ways and this book explores a selection of its emotional, psychical, and somatic consequences as they relate to an individual's relationship with their body, psychic-emotional internal life, and intimate relationships.

Ofrit Shapira-Berman, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst and a professor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a member of the Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She maintains a private practice in Tel Aviv.

1. Introduction  2. A 'Mother-of-One's-Own' - An Analytic View of Object-Relationships in Adult Patients Raised in the Kibbutz  3. 'Love Thy Work': From Having No Mother to Being Everybody's Mother - Re-Examining the Professional Choice of Women Psychotherapists Who Grew Up in the Kibbutz  4. That Which Was Not - Some Thoughts Regarding Oedipus's Modern Conflicts  5. The 'Choice' between Illusory Life and Acceptance of the Death of One's Love Object  6. Psychosomatic Symptoms as Physical Dreams: Emotional Experiences given Expression through the Body  7. When Hunger Strikes - Re-thinking Kafka's 'A Hunger Artist' in light of Winnicott's Theory of the Psyche-Soma  8. What do Faith and Trust have to do with Psychoanalysis?