Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood

The body of this work was first published in the UK in 1988; this is a reprint of a 1992 edition (Guilford Press), which includes a brief foreword by Juliet Mitchell. Welldon (Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, UK) is a psychiatrist specializing in sexual perversion; her book made waves when it first appeared, because it counters common assumptions about female psychopathology. She explores how a disturbed infant/mother relationship lies at the root of both male and female perversions, but is expressed in quite different ways in women, by self-mutiliation or child abuse. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)