The Mother's Hands: Desire, Fantasy and the Inheritance of the Maternal

The social changes of the last century have fundamentally transformed motherhood. From a patriarchal society which reduced women almost entirely to their maternal function, new social and sexual freedoms mean that motherhood is no longer the sole destiny of women. At the same time, scientific advances mean that children can now be born without the presence of a conventional mother. How then should we view motherhood today? In this book, the bestselling author and psychoanalyst Massimo Recalcati argues that “being a mother” is a huge challenge for every woman because it involves balancing motherhood against femininity. Questioning the belief that a mother’s love is unconditional, he observes that mothers may even resent their children, as a result of unresolved conflicts between different dimensions of love, and of external pressures to relinquish self-love. Drawing on the lessons of psychoanalysis, Recalcati argues that it is precisely in these competing demands that motherhood fulfils its function: only if the mother is “not-all-mother” can a child experience the absence that makes it possible for them to access the symbolic and cultural world. Recalcati cuts through clichés and conventional wisdom to offer a fresh perspective on the changing nature and conflicting demands of motherhood today. An international bestseller, this book will appeal to a wide general readership, as well as to students and scholars of gender studies, psychoanalysis, psychology and sociology.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Recalcati, Massimo

Women's Health

Polity

In this book the bestselling author and psychoanalyst Massimo Recalcati offers a fundamental re-examination of what ‘being a mother’ means today, in a world where new social and sexual freedoms mean that motherhood is no longer the sole destiny of women. Questioning the belief that a mother’s love is natural and unconditional, he paints a more complex and troubling picture of the mother–child relationship, observing that mothers may even resent their children as a result of unresolved conflicts between different dimensions of love. The mother’s hands not only nurture but can also potentially harm. Recalcati argues that it is precisely in these competing demands that motherhood fulfils its function: only if the mother is ‘not-all-mother’ can a child experience the absence that enables it to access the symbolic and cultural world. Recalcati cuts through conventional wisdom to offer a fresh perspective on the changing nature of motherhood today. An international bestseller, this book will appeal to a wide general readership, as well as to students and scholars of gender studies, psychoanalysis and related disciplines.

The Telemachus Complex: Parents and Children after the Decline of the Father

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Fatherhood today is in crisis. Fathers have gone missing, or have become their children’s playmates, and the symbolic authority of the father has lost its power. What remains of the father today in the wake of this decline, and what should the relation between children and parents now be? In addressing these questions, Massimo Recalcati draws inspiration from the story of Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey. The Telemachus complex is the reverse of the Oedipus complex. Recalcati argues that children are possessed not just with a desire to annihilate their father, as their key rival in the contest to win the mother’s love, but also with a longing for a father-figure, as someone who brings meaning, structure and order to their lives and who imbues them with a sense of the future. This fresh and insightful account of the changing relations between parents and children in the era of the decline of the father will be of great interest to a wide general readership.

The Son's Secret: From Oedipus to the Prodigal Son

Science & Math

This new book by Massimo Recalcati focuses on the psycho-social life of the son. Comparing and contrasting the tragic story of Oedipus by Sophocles and the parable of the prodigal son, Recalcati argues that all common parenting strategies, whether authoritarian or democratic, are attempts at sealing the fate of sons - that is, they are designed to ensure that sons realize the dreams and fantasies of the parents. But all that sons want - and this is their secret because they generally do not want, or are unable, to confront their parents directly - is to be recognized as unique, as different, as independent, free-thinking individuals who are able to chart their own path in life, rather than extensions of their parents' fantasies. The parents' task is to acknowledge this, and to create the space for this desire to flourish. Continuing his remarkable reflections on parents, children and family life, this new book by one of Italy's leading and bestselling public intellectuals will be of interest to a wide general readership.

In Praise of Forgiveness

Review\nÂFascinating and provocative, this book sizzles with critical passion. It is fed by a deep knowledge of the vagaries of love in our nihilistic, Âhyper-hedonistÂ times and by psychoanalytic insight. The addition of riveting cases makes this a pithy and important work.Â 
Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday Madness\nRelationships fall apart, marriages fail, couples break up – it happens to us all. Time corrodes passion and the routines of daily life kill the excitement that surrounds the emotion of the first encounter. The difficulty of uniting sexual pleasure with love, which Freud considered to be the most common neurosis in any love life, has become emblematic of a truth that seems undeniable: desire is destined to die if its object is not constantly renewed, if we do not change partner, if it is closed for too long in the restrictive chamber of the same bond.\nAnd yet what happens to these bonds when one of the two partners betrays the other, when the promise fails, when there is another emotional experience cloaked in secrecy and deceit? What happens if the traitor then begs forgiveness? Are they asking to be loved again and, having declared that it is not like it used to be, now want everything to go back to how it was? Should we make fun of lovers in their attempts to make love last? Or should we try to face up to the experience of betrayal, with the offence caused by the person we love most? Should we not perhaps attempt to praise forgiveness in love?

Self-Help

Relationships

Relationships fall apart, marriages fail, couples break up - it happens to us all. Time corrodes passion and the routines of daily life kill the excitement that surrounds the emotion of the first encounter. The difficulty of uniting sexual pleasure with love, which Freud considered to be the most common neurosis in any love life, has become emblematic of a truth that seems undeniable: desire is destined to die if its object is not constantly renewed, if we do not change partner, if it is closed for too long in the restrictive chamber of the same bond.&nbsp;&nbsp; And yet what happens to these bonds when one of the two partners betrays the other, when the promise fails, when there is another emotional experience cloaked in secrecy and deceit? What happens if the traitor then begs forgiveness? Are they asking to be loved again and, having declared that it is not like it used to be, now want everything to go back to how it was? Should we make fun of lovers in their attempts to make love last? Or should we try to face up to the experience of betrayal, with the offence caused by the person we love most? Should we not perhaps attempt to praise forgiveness in love?

The Enduring Kiss: Seven Short Lessons on Love

The kiss is the image that, perhaps more than any other, encompasses the beauty and poetry of love. Every love is required to maintain the kiss, to make it last. When they kiss, lovers carve out their hiding holes, finding their peace from war. When they kiss, the noise of the world is silenced, its laws broken, time is stolen from its normal continuity. They fall together in their distinct, embraced tongues. The kiss joins the tongue that declares love with the body of the lover. And the extinction of the kiss and, most importantly, of the desire to kiss one's beloved announces the demise of love. In this short book, Massimo Recalcati - one of Italy's leading intellectuals and bestselling authors - offers seven brief lessons on the mystery and miracle of love, from the serendipity of the first encounter to its end or its continuation over time, as mysterious and miraculous as the first encounter itself.

Mental Health

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Recalcati, Massimo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Recalcati, Massimo

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Recalcati, Massimo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Mother's Hands: Desire, Fantasy and the Inheritance of the Maternal

The Mother's Hands: Desire, Fantasy and the Inheritance of the Maternal

The Telemachus Complex: Parents and Children after the Decline of the Father

The Telemachus Complex: Parents and Children after the Decline of the Father

The Son's Secret: From Oedipus to the Prodigal Son

The Son's Secret: From Oedipus to the Prodigal Son

In Praise of Forgiveness

In Praise of Forgiveness

The Enduring Kiss: Seven Short Lessons on Love

The Enduring Kiss: Seven Short Lessons on Love