Book review for Petra Buskins's (ed.) Mothering & Psychoanalysis. Clinical, Sociological and Feminist Perspectives

Between the routines and rituals of mothering I seek out Petra Bueskens’ collection of essays, reaching for its enigmatic cover that features a woman draped in newspaper text, bearing one breast, holding a glass of water in one hand and a leaf in the other, while birds flutter around her shoulders and pencils fire past her. In Mothering & Psychoanalysis Bueskens collects twenty-three essays which together produce a lively dialogue about mothering from psychoanalytic, sociological and feminist perspectives. For Bueskens: Defining, describing, elaborating, contesting and critiquing maternal subjectivity is what this volume is about and it uses psychoanalysis and, to a lesser extent, sociology (and social theory), as a road map to this destination. Along the way we consider the place of ‘the mother’ both as a therapist and in therapy, in art and culture, in theoretical and empirical research contexts and, finally, we look at the sociological critique of therapy culture encompassing the role that feminism, intimacy, care and mothering have played in the development of psychotherapy.