Mixed feelings about motherhood--uncertainty over having a child, fears of pregnancy and childbirth, or negative thoughts about one's own children--are not just hard to discuss, they are a powerful social taboo. In this beautifully written book, Barbara Almond brings this troubling issue to light. She uncovers the roots of ambivalence, tells how it manifests in lives of women and their children, and describes a spectrum of maternal behavior--from normal feelings to highly disturbed mothering. In a society where perfection in parenting is the unattainable ideal, this compassionate book also shows how women can affect positive change in their lives.
Barbara Almond has practiced psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy for the past 38 years. She is also the mother of three grown children, one the writer, Steve Almond, author of "Candyfreak". With her husband, Dr. Richard Almond, she published "The Therapeutic Narrative: Fictional Relationships and the Process of Psychological Change" (Prager: 1996). In "The Monster Within" she integrates clinical cases and studies of fiction to illustrate the pervasiveness and painfulness of maternal ambivalence. Almond suggests that all mothers -- no matter how much they cherish their children -- struggle with mixed feelings, especially when they spill their porridge on the computer.
Almond's discussion of maternal ambivalence grows from her own experience and that of her patients. She describes a broad range of ambivalent feelings, beginning with fears of becoming pregnant, through anxieties about the baby inside during pregnancy, to the mixed feelings that child-rearing inevitably triggers.
Barbara Almond was one of five women in her medical school class at Yale. She became interested in maternal feelings and attitudes while interviewing new mothers for her graduation thesis, "Social Class Differences in Sources of Information on Infant Care".
