When a woman is mother: Feminine jouissance in motherhood

Abstract

From the clinical listening of women concerning the strains of motherhood, this article intends to discuss the indications of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan regarding the comings and goings of the feminine and the maternal positions. This article proposes that Lacan's writings on the matter of jouissance make it possible to discuss the relation between feminine and maternal through a path other than that of complementarity but neither one of exclusion, insofar as that relation may be taken within the condition of supplementarity.