The Impact of Negation of the Maternal Body on Embodiment and Subjectivity in Modernity

Abstract

This article explores the links between subjectivity formation and the societal negation of the maternal body in the modern era. Using relational matricentric psychoanalysis and feminist philosophy, the author examines the maternal body as a site of intersubjective discovery and a paradoxical space in society. This space holds the subjectivity of the modern individual, creating a philosophical dilemma between the desire for embodied autonomy and dependence on the maternal body. A key symptom of this dilemma is seen in psychoanalysis’ historical resistance to engage fully (theoretically and clinically) with both the maternal body and the experiential body more broadly. The author argues that this negation of the maternal body in Western culture, including psychoanalysis, has led to an increasingly disembodied understanding of subjectivity that is susceptible to neo-Cartesian thinking, exacerbated by the public-private dichotomization of modernity and the technological advances of the Capitalocene. The article includes reflections on a vision of a non-matricidal conception of subjectivity.