Rosalind Mayo and Christina Moutsou are senior psychoanalytic psychotherapists and writers working in private practice in the UK. Christina is a visiting lecturer of psychoanalytic psychotherapy at Regent’s University.

"The mothering that, one way and another, informs psychoanalytic treatment- and the mothers that haunt psychoanalytic theory- have been, perhaps unsurprisingly, difficult to write well about. In these remarkably illuminating and various essays, that are unusually both evocative and informative, we begin to get a new sense of what it might be to write about the so-called maternal without sentimentality or the rigours of abstraction. This is a more than useful and telling collection of writings."-Adam Phillips, psychoanalyst and writer."This is where psychoanalysis meets existential reality, when mothers describe their deeply felt experience allowing us to move from mythology and theory to the everyday reality of the rawness of the mothering experience"-Professor Emmy van Deurzen, Principal New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling."This is an extraordinary book. The editors, highly respected thinkers and psychoanalysts, have generated a remarkable collection of contributions by a diverse and impressive group of contributors who address one of the most central questions that therapists of all persuasions must ponder: what does it really mean to be a mother, and how have the relationships all of us experienced with our own mothers affected who we are as human beings? This book should be required reading for every therapist, whatever their orientation. A stunning achievement!"-M. Guy Thompson, author of The Death of Desire: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness, Second Edition, also by Routledge."This is a brilliant book of enormous value to anyone with an interest in the origins and outcomes of our most complex, ambivalent and enriching relationship. My mother died at Easter and I have found here a handbook to understand the contradictions of mothering. How to reconcile the intimacy of growing inside another human being, to the stranger that she and maybe we all become to our daughters and sons. It is a courageous, intellectually prescient, and unhesitating look at the schism between the truth and dreams of motherhood. There are passages of great beauty and emotion. Read it."-Belona Greenwood, journalist, scriptwriter and Founder and Co-organiser of Words and Women.“The book enters fearlessly into the disputatious territory of psychoanalysis in a refreshingly plural, panoramic and maternal manner, making it a valuable resource for both trainees and advanced practitioners.” - Dr. Paul Caviston, Consultant Psychiatrist, The Child and Adolescent Practice.

• Foreword by Françoise Barbira FreedmanPrefaceIntroduction by Rosalind Mayo & Christina MoutsouPart 1: On MatricideChapter 1: Rethinking Matricide by Amber JacobsChapter 2: Maternal Inheritance by Lucy KingChapter 3: ‘O Mother, Mother, what have you done?’ by Jane HaynesChapter 4: Patriarchy and its Role as Saboteur to the Maternal and Paternal Metaphors: Personal Reflections by Lakis K. GeorghiouChapter 5: The Maternal: An Immaculate Concept by Kate GilbertChapter 6: Mothers and Sons by Melike KayhanChapter 7: Rejecting Motherhood by Pat BlackettPart 2: Maternal SubjectivitiesChapter 8: Motherhood and Art Practice: Expressing Maternal Experience in Visual Art by Eti WadeChapter 9: The Paradox of the Maternal by Barbara LathamChapter 10: Not-so-Great Expectations: Motherhood and the clash of private and public worlds by Melissa BennChapter 11: Learning to be a Mother by Lynda WoodroffeChapter 12: Music and the Maternal by Alison DaviesChapter 13: The Maternal and the Erotic: An Exploration of the Links between Maternal and Erotic Subjectivity by Christina MoutsouChapter 14: How shall we tell each other of our Mothers? by Rosalind Mayo

Rosalind Mayo and Christina Moutsou are senior psychoanalytic psychotherapists and writers working in private practice in the UK. Christina is a visiting lecturer of psychoanalytic psychotherapy at Regent’s University.

"The mothering that, one way and another, informs psychoanalytic treatment- and the mothers that haunt psychoanalytic theory- have been, perhaps unsurprisingly, difficult to write well about. In these remarkably illuminating and various essays, that are unusually both evocative and informative, we begin to get a new sense of what it might be to write about the so-called maternal without sentimentality or the rigours of abstraction. This is a more than useful and telling collection of writings."-Adam Phillips, psychoanalyst and writer."This is where psychoanalysis meets existential reality, when mothers describe their deeply felt experience allowing us to move from mythology and theory to the everyday reality of the rawness of the mothering experience"-Professor Emmy van Deurzen, Principal New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling."This is an extraordinary book. The editors, highly respected thinkers and psychoanalysts, have generated a remarkable collection of contributions by a diverse and impressive group of contributors who address one of the most central questions that therapists of all persuasions must ponder: what does it really mean to be a mother, and how have the relationships all of us experienced with our own mothers affected who we are as human beings? This book should be required reading for every therapist, whatever their orientation. A stunning achievement!"-M. Guy Thompson, author of The Death of Desire: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness, Second Edition, also by Routledge."This is a brilliant book of enormous value to anyone with an interest in the origins and outcomes of our most complex, ambivalent and enriching relationship. My mother died at Easter and I have found here a handbook to understand the contradictions of mothering. How to reconcile the intimacy of growing inside another human being, to the stranger that she and maybe we all become to our daughters and sons. It is a courageous, intellectually prescient, and unhesitating look at the schism between the truth and dreams of motherhood. There are passages of great beauty and emotion. Read it."-Belona Greenwood, journalist, scriptwriter and Founder and Co-organiser of Words and Women.“The book enters fearlessly into the disputatious territory of psychoanalysis in a refreshingly plural, panoramic and maternal manner, making it a valuable resource for both trainees and advanced practitioners.” - Dr. Paul Caviston, Consultant Psychiatrist, The Child and Adolescent Practice.

• Foreword by Françoise Barbira FreedmanPrefaceIntroduction by Rosalind Mayo & Christina MoutsouPart 1: On MatricideChapter 1: Rethinking Matricide by Amber JacobsChapter 2: Maternal Inheritance by Lucy KingChapter 3: ‘O Mother, Mother, what have you done?’ by Jane HaynesChapter 4: Patriarchy and its Role as Saboteur to the Maternal and Paternal Metaphors: Personal Reflections by Lakis K. GeorghiouChapter 5: The Maternal: An Immaculate Concept by Kate GilbertChapter 6: Mothers and Sons by Melike KayhanChapter 7: Rejecting Motherhood by Pat BlackettPart 2: Maternal SubjectivitiesChapter 8: Motherhood and Art Practice: Expressing Maternal Experience in Visual Art by Eti WadeChapter 9: The Paradox of the Maternal by Barbara LathamChapter 10: Not-so-Great Expectations: Motherhood and the clash of private and public worlds by Melissa BennChapter 11: Learning to be a Mother by Lynda WoodroffeChapter 12: Music and the Maternal by Alison DaviesChapter 13: The Maternal and the Erotic: An Exploration of the Links between Maternal and Erotic Subjectivity by Christina MoutsouChapter 14: How shall we tell each other of our Mothers? by Rosalind Mayo