1st Edition
Psychoanalysis and Maternal Absence From the Traumatic to Faith and Trust
Biography
Ofrit Shapira-Berman, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst and a professor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and a member of the Tel-Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She maintains a private practice in Tel Aviv.
'Ofrit Shapira-Berman’s book brings together two fundamental subjects that preoccupy psychoanalysis: Motherhood and faith; or, taken from the other side of it, motherly-absence and trauma. With a unique and lively voice, and with a wealth of experience and knowledge in trauma, Berman portrays the phenomena of the absent mother from an intriguing variety of perspectives – sociological, psychosomatic and literary – all met by a bold, fresh and original psychoanalytic eye. The reader is not only moved by the stories and enriched by their insights, she is also gaining hope and trust in the ability to understand and repair deep wounds. The clinical evidence and the theoretical elaborations reflect deep faith in psychoanalysis; in the profound reparatory power embedded in being with someone who is willing to be present.'
Merav Roth, Head of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Israel
'This is a beautifully written exploration of the nature of maternal care and its effects on the very experience of being human. The book offers insightful clinical discussions of some of the most fundamental qualities of human life: the complementarity of the roles of faith and trust, and of witnessing and participating; the place of dreaming in the communication of psyche and soma; and ways analysis may provide a form of experiencing in which formerly unlived aspects of the self are reappropriated. This is a remarkable book not to be missed. I cannot recommend it more highly.'
Thomas Ogden, Personal and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, USA
