'Now that I am forever with child' : a study of the subjective experience of women in pregnancy

Authors

Fortune, Joanna

Issue Date

2002

Degree

MA in Psychoanalysis

Publisher

Dublin Business School

Rights

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Abstract

In writing this thesis I have set myself the task of examining female subjectivity in pregnancy. However, it is immediately apparent that in order to see this one must first look at female subjectivity itself, and in doing this we must look to female sexuality, the female position in a patriarchal society, the mother-daughter relationship, the silence of women surrounding all of the above that led Freud to declare in 1926 "that the sexual life of adult women is a dark continent for psychology ". In chapter one I am looking at how it came about that female sexuality became such a taboo subject. I am looking at Freud and even Victorian psychiatry of the 1800's to explore how women became so silent about their sexuality and desires.

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