The fantasy of damage to the baby

Abstract

The clinical material for this study of female fantasies stems from a specific psychoanalytical situation where the analyst and the analysand are pregnant at the same time. The impact of this situation is powerful. The emergence of archaic fantasies is facilitated in transference and countertransference. Fantasies of damage to the baby or to the procreative function may emerge very vividly in the double pregnancy setting and working through these fantasies becomes possible. It is suggested that these fantasies are typical female castration fantasies and manifest the fear of the mother's revenge and punishment for forbidden oedipal wishes. The double pregnancy setting may sensitize the analyst to her pregnant analysand's unconscious communication and yet blind the analyst in some areas to the protection of her own baby. The duality of phallic strivings in the girl's psychosexual development is discussed. They may be employed as a defense against specific feminine anxieties, such as fear of retaliatory attacks on her inner space and its fertility: the female castration anxiety. They may also be constituents of her sexuality, coexisting with inner genital strivings. The co-existence of phallic and inner-genital strivings in the female psyche is always conflictual.