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"What is genuine maternal love"? Clinical considerations and technique n psychoanalytic parent-infant psychotherapy

Tessa Baradon1

  • 1The Anna Freud Centre, London.

The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
|May 3, 2006
PubMed

The question of what is genuine maternal love was posed by a mother struggling to understand and value the nature of her bond with her small baby. The question surfaced time and again in the context of this dyad's long-term parent-infant psychotherapy and has challenged me to examine my thinking and, indeed, has produced impassioned discussions within the Parent Infant Project team at The Anna Freud Centre. In this paper I will address this question through sessional material of this mother and baby and discuss issues of technique in response to it, including my countertransference and conceptualization.

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