The Prenatal Theme in Psychotherapy

This book is an attempt to examine whether patients in analysis or therapy can sometimes be said to form a kind of transference that not only operates at a prenatal level but can also lend itself to interpretation just like any other postnatal level of transference.

Philippe Ployé considers whether the prenatal condition, usually conceived from a psychological point of view as one of objectless, pre-ambivalent fusion with the mother, would be capable of being relived and reenacted later in the form of a object-directed, aggressive, as well as libidinal, "foetal" form of relatedness to the therapist.

The author looks at how this information might be best used in clinical practice, and the difficulty of communicating these "findings" to patients in a way that helps them by meaning something to them. He also looks at the question of whether the countertransference, too, can sometimes be seen to operate at pre/or perinatal level. There are also chapters on the possible role of the placenta in ego development and placenta symbolism, and a review of some of the literature concerning the pretnatal stage.