Mother-Infant Attachment and Psychoanalysis The Eyes of Shame [Paperback]

Winner of the 2004 Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.

The issue of shame has become a central topic for many writers and therapists in recent years, but it is debatable how much real understanding of this powerful and pervasive emotion we have achieved. Mother-Infant Attachment and Psychoanalysisargues that shame can develop during the first six months of life through an unreflected look in the mother's eyes, and that this shame is then internalised by the infant and reverberates through its later life. The author further expands on this concept of the look through a powerful and extensive study of the concept of the Evil Eye, an enduring universal belief that eyes have the power to inflict injury. Finally, she presents ways of healing shame within a clinical setting, and provides a fascinating analysis of the role of eye-contact in the therapeutic encounter.
This book brings together a unique blend of theoretical interpretations of shame with clinical studies, and integrates major concepts from psychoanalysis, Jungian analysis, developmental psychology and anthropology. The result is a broad understanding of shame and a real understanding of why it may underlie a wide range of clinical disorders.

Part I: The Eyes of Shame. Shame Defined. A Phenomenological Description of Shame. The Individual's Experience. Shame and Society. An Analysis of the Development of the Origins of Shame. Part II: Mother's Eyes. The Eye as Face. A Note about Blind Infants. Infant Research. Eye-to-Eye Contact. Gaze Aversion. Part III: Mother's Eyes as False Mirrors.The Eye as Mirror. The Eye as False Mirror. The Evil Eye and the Great Mother. Part IV: The Eyes of the Terrible Mother.The Eye of Death. The Eye of the Terrible Mother in Ancient Egypt. The Petrifying Face of Medusa. The Fiery Eyes olÃÂ