Gender and perversion--what constitutes a "bad mother".
BACKGROUND
There is a need for reconsidering the conceptualisations of female perverse behavior, especially in connection with motherhood.


RESULTS
Based on case material obtained through psychoanalytic psychotherapy with female patients from a psychosomatic gynecological outpatient clinic, the characteristics of the psychic structure of these patients who presented symptoms of deliberate self harm and of misusing and mistreating their children, are outlined. Another common trait is the embeddedness of their perverse behavior in a generational chain of transmission. Female patients who mistreat their children had been victims of traumatising experiences in their own biography, inflicted by their mothers and directed towards their bodies.


CONCLUSIONS
Female perverse behavior, therefore, is fundamentally different from male perversion: the perverse act in women is aimed against themselves and/or their children. Currently used diagnostic statistical manuals lack categories to describe this symptomatology adequately. Further research is requested to understand a mother's perverse actions and thus develop treatment strategies, without marginalizing these patients.
Department of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, University of Vienna Medical School, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. marianne.springer-kremser@akh-wien.ac.at
M
M
Springer-Kremser
K
K
Leithner
M
M
Fischer
H
H
Löffler-Stastka
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D012448:Sadism / Q000523:psychology*