Maternal Ambivalence in Female Psychotherapy Relationships

Abstract

MATERNAL AMBIVALENCE IN FEMALE PSYCHOTHERAPY RELATIONSHIPSAs social workers often provide various types of clinical interventions to marginalized, distraught mothers, an understanding of how gender issues influence these female clinical relationships is required. This paper draws on one case study from within a larger research project in which the intra-psychic and inter-relational impact of maternal ambivalence in clinical exchanges between the female psychotherapist and five, low-income single mothers was examined over a two year period. The case study presented here highlights the generational, relational, and psychic impact of manageable and unmanageable feelings of maternal ambivalence. A feminist psychoanalytic interpretation of maternal ambivalence and relational theory provided the theoretical framework. The relevance of the findings for social work practice is discussed.

Who Else Is in the Room? The Good Mother Myth in the Social Worker‒Mother Client Encounter

“…But taking the role of telling right from wrong in a strict way might narrow Elana's ability to contain, assess or identify with her client's stories. This in turn might jepordise the therapeutic bond of the social worker–client relationship (Wexler, 2006). Engaged in a reflective process, Elana might be able to see how ‘the state’, through its welfare policies on families in distress, practices policing and surveillance in ways that often reproduce and perpetuate families’ distress (Swift and Parada, 2004).…”

“…Engaged in a reflective process, Elana might be able to see how ‘the state’, through its welfare policies on families in distress, practices policing and surveillance in ways that often reproduce and perpetuate families’ distress (Swift and Parada, 2004). Wexler (2006) points to the growing need for social workers working with vulnerable mothers to examine their own mother-blaming attitudes and to develop feminist, holistic and reflective approaches for intervention. Adopting such an approach might leave Elana and her mother–client more room for exploration and questioning and nurture a dialogue in which the ‘welfare mother’ could be seen as a subject rather than an object.…”