Abstract
The majority of patients in my Berlin psychoanalytic practice are parents, or parents-to-be. There are both conscious and unconscious reasons for this on my behalf. Certainly, my partial identification as a father plays a role, but I am also fascinated by how “traces of the Infantile” (Salomonsson, 2025, p. xiii) become particularly virulent between parent and child, as well as in the transference-countertransference matrices in the treatment. Through my work with parents, I have also become more aware of the vulnerabilities of the postpartum period, which applies to mothers and fathers. All this has made me eagerly await Andy Cohen’s book since it was announced.
Parenthood can be understood as a fundamental natural process, rooted in biology and evolution; from a psychoanalytical perspective, it also represents a crystallization point for radical change in the inner and outer worlds. Parents are challenged to orchestrate external innovations and have to confront the unknown aspects of their own personality, including the emergence of their own infantile unconscious. These developments can be experienced as enriching and exhilarating, but they can also trigger uncertainty and fears. Swiss psychoanalyst Dieter Bürgin (2017) refers to becoming a parent as a decisive existential experience.
The experience of such uncertainty forms the prelude to Parenting Psychoanalysed by Andy Cohen, a psychoanalyst and editor based in Johannesburg, South Africa. In her introduction, Cohen describes how her first encounter with psychoanalysis was the result of her search for answers during the turbulent first months of motherhood. Overwhelmed by the multitude of parenting guides, which provided clear but, to her, inconsistent and insufficiently relatable answers and advice, Cohen found in psychoanalysis an attitude and a set of tools for exploring the complex experience of the parent-child relationship. Years later, her own psychoanalytic experience prompted Cohen to contact psychoanalysts worldwide. Starting with the question, “What did you struggle with as a parent and how did psychoanalysis help you work it out?” (p. 4), she asked her colleagues to answer this question personally, while keeping psychoanalytic theory in mind in a concise, jargon-free, and generally understandable way. This publication now contains 39 of these answers from a total of 30 countries, addressed to the reader in letter form.
Due to the large number of letters collected here, a wide variety of family arrangements and issues are addressed. These range from biological motherhood and fatherhood to parenthood in blended families to adoption, and include reflections on the position of the only child, sibling dynamics, dealing with adolescent crises, and illnesses of one’s child. The majority of contributors reflect on how their own development inhibited or blocked them from taking on certain parental roles and the extent to which their own analytical self-awareness enabled them to create more inner space and thus overcome obstacles and resolve conflicts. Such personal insight is certainly rare, as psychoanalytic authors seldomly leave their “comfort zone” (p. 24), characterized by the analytical incognito, as Harriet Wolfe notes in her contribution. At the same time, leaving it seems unavoidable if parenthood is to be understood as a “transgenerational phenomenon” (p. 40), as Gohar Homayounpour argues in her contribution, or if, as Carol Richards explains in her letter, becoming a parent is an unconscious repetition of what we ourselves were exposed to as children. The personal accounts are very touching sketches of experiences and scenes that, despite their differences, point to the universality of parenthood—an extremely hopeful moment that might counter parenthood’s excessive demands. Barbara Stimmel illustrates this potential in her contribution, suggesting that a professional role as a therapist by no means protects one from being overwhelmed by emotional experiences, including “guilt, shame, sorrow and regret that are unavoidable elements of parenthood” (p. 115). In his contribution, Fred Busch describes forgiving oneself for these things as a skill of a good parent.
When contributors reveal their ignorance and feelings of being overwhelmed, while simultaneously struggling to endure and contain them, it becomes clear that Bion’s (1970) ideas about negative capability are necessary not only in analytical work but also in parenting. As some of the letters printed here point out, another important element for sufficiently successful parenting is the ability to listen to the child, to oneself, and to provide the child with a “holding environment” in Winnicott’s (1960, p. 590) sense. It is not surprising that Winnicott (1971) repeatedly serves as a theoretical reference point in this publication dealing with parenthood, for example with his concept of the “good enough mother” (p. 10), providing the child with a nurturing and supporting environment that also allows space for frustration. The contributors succeed in bringing psychoanalytic concepts like these to life in a very vivid way, using short scenes from their own histories.
It is wonderful that Cohen was also able to attract many fathers, as fatherhood in general, and fatherhood of psychotherapists in particular, still remains an insufficiently researched area. Consequently, Ashis Roy reflects, in his contribution, on how the absence of the father limits opportunities for identification and ultimately also for dedicated participation due to the lack of sufficient role models.
Parenting Psychoanalysed also takes into account that parenthood is a lifelong process of change and development. As a result, the letters do not merely revolve around experiences of pregnancy and birth, or the early days with a baby, but also reflect on relationships with adolescents, the growing up of one’s children, and the role of grandparents. For example, in his letter, Stefano Bolognini outlines the difficulty of separating from children, focusing on the dialectical tension between attachment and closeness on the one hand, and separation and individuation on the other, which always exists but unfolds in a new way from adolescence onwards.
In my opinion, one of the strengths of this publication is its close attention to the experience of inner ambivalence and negative feelings associated with parenting, which are sometimes difficult to contain. While many of the usual parenting advice books tell you to do the opposite, this book, as Eike Hinze describes, suggests attention to ambivalence as a condicio sine qua non in any human relationship. Similarly, Martine Griller-Mushel writes in her letter that having a child also gives rise to new, unknown fears. It is precisely these vulnerabilities that, alongside the joy of having children, can have an effect on our inner selves. Sigmund Freud (1930/1961) reminded us of this as early as 1930: “We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love” (p. 82).
Another merit of Cohen’s publication is that it enriches the void in public discourse on psychoanalytic thinking about parenting, which she had initially experienced. She concludes that even if parents decide against analytic treatment, they can still benefit from theoretical concepts and psychoanalytic representations. Even though there is always a risk of reductionism and simplification of theory and practice, Parenting Psychoanalysed proves without a doubt how psychoanalysis can find a place in public discourse, which, in my opinion, is absolutely necessary, given the current state of the world (Allison, 2024). The result is not a classic reference book exclusively for psychoanalysts, but a publication that, I think, can benefit clinicians and lay readers alike.
This varied and innovative publication—reminiscent in form to Dear Candidate by Fred Busch (2020), who also supported Cohen in her project—invites readers to reflect on their own parental positions and experiences and might encourage expectant parents not only to think about themselves, but to also adopt what Arthur Leonoff describes in his contribution as the optimal attitude of “curiosity and respect” (p. 92). The volume is rounded off by a comprehensive index. As Cohen intended, this book deserves a wide readership, especially beyond the psychoanalytic community.
