The Backward Child and His Mother: A Psychoanalytic Study (World of Man)

In her work with backward children, Dr. Maud Mannoni pays close attention to the language of the subconscious as she examines the ways in which the stigma of "retardation" works in the politics of the family. Presenting detailed case studies of her psychoanalytic work with children who have been diagnosed as hopelessly retarded, she explores the networks of real and imaginary relationships in which these children exist. And she finds that the illness is frequently a symptom of an existential and psychological reality which the child cannot otherwise express - that his "retardation" is a response to the expectations and fantasies of his parents. It defines him in the eyes of others as handicapped, and alienates him from his own experience. The territory of retardation and "feeblemindedness" is relatively uncharted, and Dr. Mannoni moves into this difficult area with fresh psychoanalytic perceptions and a revolutionary approach to the child's experience and alienation. She denounces the collective mentality that isolates the "retarded" person from society and denies him all personal expression. Maud Mannoni, one of the world's foremost child psychoanalysts, lives in Paris and is a proponent of the theories of Jacques Lacan. [From jacket flap]