Harvey (2020) illuminates the experience of the uncanny gaze in the non-disabled person who encounters a child with a physical difference. "The onlooker is left feeling uncertain as to what category this person falls into, eliciting feelings of both the familiar and unfamiliar, the frightening and the attractive." As the mother of a child with Moebius Syndrome, a congenital form of facial paralysis, whose face looked visibly different from birth, Harvey's observation that "the mother's sense of self, and her own feelings of unfamiliarity within herself, never quite settle because her subjectivity is constantly disrupted by others' responses to her child. . . amplifying her own ambivalence," makes psychological sense of Dr. Hershberg's own unique maternal experience.
Dr. Hershberg will describe her maternal self-experience in greater depth with reference to maternal gazes including the loving empathic mother and "the uncanny" ambivalent (m)other, contextualized by Winnicott's (1971) template of the mother’s face as a mirror for the baby's image of herself. In addition, Dr. Hershberg will include the impact of other salient gazes: the paternal gaze, the grandmother’s gaze, the medical gaze and the analyst's gaze. Her daughter's writings and vignettes will provide a window into how a creatively astute, yet vulnerable, child expresses her experiences of alienation, rebellion and reparation, involving her attract ion to superheroes, creation myths and Beauty and the Beast, as well as how her loving and assertive gaze helped her mother.
Finally, Dr. Hershberg will examine the way these subjective maternal experiences have contributed to her analytic sensibility and view of difference in her clinical work.
Learning Objectives:
Following this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Identify the emotional impact of the uncanny gaze expressed by a non-
disabled mother of a child with a visible difference.
2. Describe the concept of 'the mother's face as a mirror' described
by Winnicott.
3. Describe the concept of 'abjection' identified by Kristeva.
4. Describe how fairytales like Beauty and the Beast embody the uncanny.
References:
Harvey, C. (2020). The uncanny effect of disability: Uncomfortable maternal love for a Disabled child. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 56(1):1-28.
Winnicott, DW(I97l). Mirror-role of mother and family in child development, In
Playing and Reality. New York, NY: Routledge
About our Presenter:
Dr. Sandra Hershberg is a psychoanalyst and adult and child psychiatrist. She is the Director of Psychoanalytic Training, Founding Member and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in Washington, DC. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis, where she received an award for excellence in teaching in 2019. Dr.Hershberg is a Geographical Supervising Analyst at the St Louis Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center. She is on the Clinical Faculty at Georgetown University Medical School. Dr. Hershberg serves on the Program Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Hershberg is an Associate Editor of the journal Psychoanalysis, Self and Context and is on the Editorial Board of Psychoanalytic Inquiry.oman on the study of physical and psychological disability.
Dr. Hershberg has published and presented numerous papers on a wide variety of subjects including biography and psychoanalysis, pregnancy and creativity, therapeutic action, ethics, and the mother/daughter relationship. Her most recent paper is A Female Gaze in/on the Female Body in Art and Psychoanalysis: Paula Modersohn-Becker. Dr. Hershberg is the Co-Editor and a contributor to the book Psychoanalytic Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice: Reading Joseph D. Lichtenberg published by Routledge in 2016.
Two volumes of Psychoanalytic Inquiry currently in press that she is editing or co-editing include Writing a New Playbook: Confronting Theoretical and Clinical Challenges of the Twin Pandemics of Covid-19 and Systemic Racism and the other entitled Home.
The paper she is presenting today is part of her collaboration with a creative young woman on the study of physical and psychological disability.
Continuing Medical Education Statement
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint providership of the American Psychoanalytic Association and Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum number of (2) AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Important Disclosure Information For All Learners
None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
APA-American Psychological Association Statement
Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education programs for psychologists.
Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center maintains responsibility for the program and its content.
This program is being offered for 2.0 continuing education credits.
Participants must pay tuition fee, attend the entire seminar, and complete an evaluation in order to receive a certificate of completion. Participants not fulfilling these requirements will not receive a certificate. Partial credit is not available.