Introduction to the Special Issue on Maternal Subjectivity: An Essential Link in Relational-Social Psychoanalysis.

This article begins with an overview of the historical treatment of maternal subjectivity within psychology, psychoanalysis, and feminism, discussing the inroads that have been made to support the subject status of mothers themselves, as well as where these improvements are incomplete. Also considered are the invited papers appearing in this special issue of Psychoanalytic Perspectives and the ways in which they unfold new iterations of theorizing maternal subjectivity. Particularly, this paper introduces the concept of matrescence—the developmental process of becoming a mother—into the psychoanalytic lexicon. Doing so allows further discussion of how the mother's subject status can elaborate the lineage of the feminine and co-created, relational, and social aspects of identity. Recognizing the mother is not an individualistic pursuit, a competition between mother and baby for whose experience gets to matter; rather, recognizing maternal subjectivity is inherently a recognition of linking. It is essential to the development of relational psychoanalysis and, this paper argues, an essential link in considering the oft-neglected socio-cultural aspects of the psyche. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]