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Mothers Accused and Abused
Edited by
Angela Foster
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Angela Foster; individual chapters, the
contributors
The right of Angela Foster to be identified as author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Foster, Angela, 1948- editor.
Title: Mothers accused and abused : addressing complex psychological needs /
[edited by] Angela Foster.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018028429| ISBN 9781138095809 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138095847 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781351601498 (epub) |
ISBN 9781351601481 (mobipocket)
Subjects: LCSH: Abusive mothers--Great Britain--Psychology. | Child abuse--
Great Britain--Psychological aspects. | Child abuse--Great Britain--Prevention.
Classification: LCC HV6626.54.G7 M68 2018 | DDC 362.76/30941--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028429
Introduction 1
ANGELA FOSTER
PART ONE
Setting the scene: Reflections on a ground-breaking book 9
1 Mother, madonna, whore: understanding perverse mothering:
Reflections on a ground-breaking book 11
ESTELA V. WELLDON
PART TWO
The pain of relationships lived and re-lived 31
4 Infanticide, matricide or suicide 33
CARINE MINNE
PART THREE
Mothers in prison 75
7 Transition to motherhood and becoming a child-less mother in
prison 77
LAURA ABBOTT
PART FOUR
Interventions following child care proceedings 113
10 Last chance saloon: From repetition to growth, a young mother’s
journey in brief psychotherapy 115
FIONA HENDERSON
11 Better outcomes and better justice: The Family Drug and Alcohol
Court 125
STEVE BAMBROUGH, NICHOLAS CRICHTON AND SHEENA WEBB
PART FIVE
Ways forward 153
five Ways forward 155
ANGELA FOSTER, BEATE SCHUMACHER AND DAVINA JHUMMUN
the Tavistock Portman Clinics NHS Trust. Presently she works in private
practice and lectures worldwide. She is author of Mother, Madonna
Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood (1988), Sadoma-
sochism (2002), Playing with Dynamite: A Personal Approach to the
Understanding of Perversions, Violence and Criminality (Karnac, 2011),
Sex Now, Talk Later (Karnac, 2016), and Sadomasochism in Arts and
Politics (2016). She is the main editor of A Practical Guide to Forensic
Psychotherapy (1997).
In 1997 she was awarded by Oxford Brookes University a D.Sc. Hon-
orary Doctorate of Science and in 2014, an honorary member of the
American Psychoanalytic Association for her work in helping to under-
stand women who harm children.
Dr Anna Williams, DClinPsy, BSc, is a Clinical Psychologist working in
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. She has worked
in forensic settings for over a decade and currently works with female
offenders in prison. Her research interests include maternal identity devel-
opment and trans-generational cycles of maternal abuse. Her doctoral
thesis studied the trans-generational attachment patterns of women with a
personality disorder who had a child removed from their care, and she has
published qualitative studies in peer reviewed journals about group therapy
treatment outcomes.
Pamela Windham Stewart, after completing a degree in History of Art and
working for many years, re-trained as a Montessori teacher and managed a
nursery school in North London. Her growing interest in child develop-
ment inspired her to continue thinking about children and she gained an
MA from the Tavistock in Observational Studies in 1998. Her dissertation
topic ‘Observations of Mothers and Babies in Prison: Born Inside’ led her
to become a UKCP registered psychotherapist. Over the past 20 years she
has continued to work with pregnant women and women with babies in
prison as well as having managed a psychotherapy service in the largest
male prison in Europe. Currently she works in four prisons as an indivi-
dual psychotherapist providing therapy for female murderers and paedo-
philes and as a staff group facilitator. She continues to provide weekly
groups for pregnant women and women with their babies in prison. Calling
this project Born Inside, it is funded by the International Montessori
Association. She has a private practice in North London and also provides
supervision. Several years ago she founded the Saturday Forensic Forum to
promote work with complex patients in difficult settings. Years of forensic
work have convinced her of the huge impact psychotherapy with prisoners
can have on the lives not only of the inmates but on the wider community.
Acknowledgements
I am delighted to have had the opportunity to edit this book on a subject that
has concerned and interested me throughout my career.
Firstly, I would like to thank Joanne Forshaw at Routledge Taylor &
Francis for accepting my proposal.
Secondly, I am extremely grateful and appreciative of all the contributors
without whom the book would not exist. Thank you all for your interest in
the proposal, for your willingness to contribute, for your work and for being
so helpful and responsive to my queries, questions and alterations. Thank you
also for the excellent ground-breaking work you do in caring for accused and
abused mothers and for their children (whether in ensuring that they are able
to grow up in safe homes or in providing help for them as adults).
Thanks also to Wiley Blackwell for the permission to use papers by Helena
Kennedy and Carine Minne. The original versions were published in the
British Journal of Psychotherapy, Volume 25, Number 2, May 2009, in a
special edition to mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of Mother,
Madonna, Whore: The Idealisation and Denigration of Motherhood, and to
celebrate the work of Dr Estela Welldon.
Thanks to my friend and artist Mary Barnes for producing such an evoca-
tive, original drawing for the book cover.
Thanks to colleagues for their interest and suggestions about who and what
is included. I am aware that there could have been many more chapters,
contributors and references to the work of others but a book can only be so
long, and I apologise to those people whose work might have been included
but isn’t and for other omissions.
Thanks to Nadine Vella and Zara Imtiaz Ahmed for invaluable editorial
assistance in the last few weeks.
Acknowledgements xv
Thanks to Zara Imtiaz Ahmed and Leslie Bash, who in reading many of
the chapters, have enabled me to conduct some very basic market research to
ensure that the writing in this book is accessible to people who are not
already part of the therapy network.
Thanks again to Leslie Bash who has also shown great interest in the book
and has been extremely supportive of me throughout this venture.
Finally, very special thanks to all the courageous mothers whose stories are
included. It is your willingness to share your experiences that brings this book
to life.
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
Angela Foster
This is a book of stories about mothers who are accused of harming and, in
some instances, killing their children; stories about the children who go on to
harm or kill others and about the challenges to professionals, therapists and
social workers, who work with them.
When motherhood is idealised there is a societal reluctance to face the
reality of harmful mothering; consequently those who blatantly fail to live up
to the ideal are viewed as individual aberrations, vilified and marginalised. In
this way we protect ourselves from facing the generational problem in our
midst, nothing changes and we remain complicit in the perpetuation of fur-
ther neglect. Meanwhile, the accused mothers, women who, almost without
exception, were abused during their own childhoods, lose their children and
often their freedom. In addition they are further burdened by social attitudes
which compound their view of themselves as bad and undeserving.
The contributors to this book illustrate how they face this generational
problem and seek to address cycles of neglect. The book was conceived in
December 2015 at a conference entitled, ‘The mother in mind: improving
services for mothers with complex mental health needs’ (hosted by the Inter-
national Association of Forensic Psychotherapy).
Deprived and abused girls who are in great need may only come to our
attention when their extreme distress is expressed through their actions,
including attacks on their children. These mothers have longstanding unmet
and ongoing dependency needs but sadly, given the current focus on short-
term interventions, they may never receive the longer-term help they require.
We argue that the provision of longer-term therapeutic help that is compre-
hensive in addressing the intra-psychic, inter-personal and social problems is
not only humane but also cost-effective. It puts an end to cycles of abuse and
deprivation, prevents a seemingly endless repetition of court hearings, care
proceedings and imprisonment and reduces the trauma to both mothers and
their children.
The contributors to this edited volume are intentionally drawn from a
range of different professions and work in a range of settings. The aim is to
bring together thinking from these different strands in order to present as
2 Angela Foster
Therapeutic help
None of the above helps these mothers to own their behaviour but, if they are
to emerge from this experience (and, in some cases, be well enough to have
children with them in the future, either existing children or new babies), then
it is crucial that they have had the opportunity to face what they have done.
This, is a terrifying prospect not least because it stirs up more feelings of
shame and self-hatred which can feel unbearable to women who are not psy-
chologically strong. It is only with skilled therapeutic help that the mothers
who are the subjects of this book can even begin to embark on this process.
We have to take into account the intra-psychic world of these women, the
problematic and often explosive nature of the relationships they form, both
personally and professionally; the impact this has on our helping agencies and
the responses this provokes.
Introduction 3
Toxic relationships
The mothers referred to in this book know what it is like to be in a toxic rela-
tionship; a relationship that is both destructive and addictive, even if they don’t
conceive of it in these terms. Anna Motz illustrates this with her account of
Stacey’s life.
Stacey struggled to learn from experience, had unmet needs from her
early life, an impoverished capacity to regulate her emotions or delay
gratification, and an impulsive aspect to her personality – all of which led
her into unsuitable, often abusive relationships. She seemed to have
become addicted to the excitement and drama that these relationships
appeared to offer, and has continued to enter into such relationships
without regard for her own safety, or that of her children.
(Motz 2014, p. 43)
Care as abuse
Bob Hinshelwood (2002) notes three central features of severe personality
disorder that inevitably intrude into any therapeutic setting. These are:
In identifying how abused people come to view help as yet further abuse, he
warns staff that their fate is ‘to feel abused by those they aim to help’ (p. 1).
4 Angela Foster
It’s a struggle for any of us to keep the whole woman in mind, i.e. the needy
child and the needy and destructive adult. It therefore becomes vitally
important to work on maintaining good teamwork, good relationships with
seniors in the organisational hierarchy and with neighbours, whether they are
services or local residents, if the staff, the work and the therapeutic services
are to survive the inevitable attacks.
Female perversion
Estela Welldon’s pioneering work that enabled us to face female perversion
has added immeasurably to our understanding of mothers who attack their
children and informed a whole range of therapeutic work much of which is
evidenced in the chapters of this book.
As a clinician I have observed that the main difference in a male and female
perverse action lies in the aim. Whereas in men the act is aimed at an out-
side part-object, in women it is usually against themselves, either against
their bodies or against objects which they see as their own creations: their
babies. In both cases bodies and babies are treated as part-objects.
(Welldon 1988, p. 8)
Perverse mothering
To quote Welldon again,
Kimberly’s first words to me were these: ‘I can’t live without my child. All
he wants is me.
He is my world’, Kimberly’s world had come crashing down a year ear-
lier … when her little boy was taken away … ‘Losing Al was the worst
day of my life.’
(p. 317)
Kimberly was a teenager when she had her son and her mother was a
teenager when she was born. Kimberly was not the first of her mother’s chil-
dren. We can only speculate about her grandmother. Kimberly had a range of
half-brothers and sisters and a ‘bewildering succession of fathers’; she was
sexually abused, neglected and abandoned when her mother chose the abusive
stepfather over her and she was taken into care aged seven. Kimberly’s
mother (whom I’ll call Sarah), had lost her own father when she was seven
and Sarah’s mother subsequently married a violent man. Aged fifteen, Sarah
was homeless, drinking too much and pregnant.
Schumacher’s hypothesis is that for girls and women like Kimberly mother-
hood is an imagined ‘solution’ to early trauma. When the new baby becomes a
demanding reality the mother feels deprived of the longed for satisfaction and
‘solution’ and ‘From here, the step to abuse or neglect is not a big one’ (p. 318).
Sara loved the ‘neatness’ of her prison cell … Sara said she ‘cried and
cried’ for the first time when she arrived at the secure centre because it
was the first time in years that she had felt safe enough to do so. ‘This is
the most stable I have ever been I know that I’m staying here, I know
how long I am staying here, I know the time getting fed, I know that I’ve
got a shower and I know that I’ve got a bed.’
(Longfield 2018, p. 16)
Longfield, reflecting on this, comments ‘I used to think there was never any
excuse for locking children up. Now I know that for some of them, it is the
best chance they have.’ It may also be the best opportunity for girls and
women like Sara to access and benefit from some therapeutic help both while
incarcerated and through follow up aftercare on release. If successful then
Sara would be the first woman in a line of female relations who was able to
break the generational cycle of neglect and abuse.
Perhaps in choosing to write for a free newspaper, Longfield also recognises
the need to address the general public and invite them to consider the plight
of those we too readily condemn.
Confidentiality
This book is full of stories about distressed mothers and their children. Readers
can be assured that all the people concerned have either given their permission
for their material to be used or the writer has disguised their identity, at times
presenting an amalgam of those with whom they have worked.
References
American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, 5th edition. Arlington VA: APA.
Hinshelwood, R.D. (2002) Abusive help – Helping abuse: The psychodynamic impact
of severe personality disorder on caring institutions. Criminal Behaviour and Mental
Health 12(2).
Introduction 7
Hobson, R. Peter, Matthew P.H. Patrick, Jessica A. Hobson, Lisa Crandell, Elisa
Bronfman & Karlen Lyons-Ruth (2009) How mothers with borderline personality
disorder relate to their year-old infants. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 195(4):
325–330.
Knox, J. (2013) The ‘blame and shame’ society. New Associations Issue 13 Autumn.
Longfield, A. (2018) How children’s wrecked lives ricochet through the generations.
London Evening Standard. 9 April, p. 16.
Motz, A. (2014) Toxic Couples: The Psychology of Domestic Violence. London & New
York: Routledge.
Schumacher, B. (2008) ‘I can’t live without my child’: Motherhood as a ‘Solution’ to
Early Trauma. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 24(3): 317–327.
Welldon, E. V. (1988) Mother, Madonna Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of
Motherhood. London: Free Association Books.
World Health Organization (1992) The ICD-10 classification of mental and behavioural
disorders: Clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines. Geneva: World Health
Organization.
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Part one
I was thrilled when approached last year by Angela Foster with the idea of a
book in which we would update all of our views regarding the serious diffi-
culties that women can face with the difficult and at times unbearable (and
often unacknowledged) task of becoming mothers.
The year in which this is written (2018) marks 30 years since my book
Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood
was first published in London. Up until that time absolute silence reigned
over this extremely serious predicament. It was as if we were all silent con-
spirators in our shared denial of this thing that was affecting not only women
but also society in general.
Why were the long-held myths underpinning the idealisation of mother-
hood that sustain a denial of emotional problems at this serious and impor-
tant time in a women’s life (and wider society) beyond challenge?
I wrote Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of
Motherhood to confront these myths and denials just as feminism was at its
fiercest historical moment. At the time, a feminist bookshop in Islington
refused to stock the book because they felt it once more adopted the position
of blaming women for the problems of society. It later transpired that they
had never read it.
Professor Paul Verhaeghe, a Lacanian Professor of Psychoanalysis at the
University of Ghent interpreted this apparent resistance:
universe of the male. It took courage to put that forward against both
traditional patriarchal and contemporary feminist views.
(Verhaeghe, 2009, p. 184)
Sitä seurasi joku mitätön tappelu, juuri siksi että nimi näkyi
sanomalehtien poliisiosastossa, mutta seuraavana syksynä Kalle
Kärppä jo teki ensimmäisen urotyön, ryöväyksen keskellä päivää. Se
sattui siinä syksyn ja talven rajamailla, arvatenkin kylmä ja nälkä
olivat tapauksen tekijät. Mies, hiukan humaltunut, asteli Kalle
Kärppää vastaan kadulla, ja miehen kellon vitjat loistivat. Katu sattui
olemaan tyhjä. Ja se, jonka minä olin nähnyt hevoskohtauksessa,
heräsi Kalle Kärpässä äkkiä eloon, heräsi ja pääsi herraksi. Ryöväys
oli silmänräpäyksen työ, edeltäkäsin suunnittelematon,
sommittelematon. Komea kertomus siitä oli sanomalehdissä.
Humaltunut alkoi huutaa poliisia ja juosta rosvon jälessä. Huuto toi
apua pihoista ja porttikäytävistä. Ehätti poliisikin joukkoon. Alkoi
verraton ajometsästys. Kun paon mahdollisuus parin nokipojan
odottamattoman ilmaantumisen tautia hupeni, löi ryöstäjä leikiksi
koko jutun. Paiskasi ensin kellon kauas luotaan, paiskasi molemmat
nokipojat katuun ja virkkoi:
Ehkä?
JUMALAN PUUTARHURIKSI
Pian oppi hän huomaamaan, että melkein kaikki muut pojat olivat
tiedoissa hänen edellään, ja että hänen opettamisensa oli tykkänään
laiminlyöty. Kirkkaissa silmissä kuvastui usein surunvoittoinen ilme,
kun hän kuuli ikäisiltään pojilta kyseltävän asioita ja seikkoja, joista ei
hänellä ollut vähääkään tietoa ja joita ei hän pystynyt edes
käsittämäänkään. Tämmöisen silmänräpäyksen jälestä muuttui hän
mietteliääksi, ja katse, jonka hän silloin tapasi luoda minuun, tuntui
olevan kotoisin jostakin toisesta maailmasta.
Jälellä oli siis vain kolme, mutta hekin kielsivät suun täydeltä.
Olivat muka heti hekin lähteneet juoksemaan, heti kun ennättivät
metsäpolulle, eivät olleet nähneet eivätkä olleet huomanneet ketään
tuntematonta, olivat sanalla sanoen viattomia kuin eilispäivän lapset.
Vakaumus että syyllinen oli heidän joukossaan, heräsi minussa
oitis. Olisinpa voinut sanoa syyllisen nimenkin, mutta kun näkijä
puuttui ja kun he itsepintaisesti kieltäytyivät ilmaisemasta totuutta, en
voinut omien otaksumisieni perusteella ruveta lakia käyttämään.
Siten koko kuulustelu alkoi mennä pilalle, ja minä olin jo näkevinäni
moniaiden silmäin salaa kiiluvan ilosta, kun rikosta ei saatu selville
eikä ketään voitu sen johdosta rangaista. Nuo kolme eivät
sekautuneet puhumaan ristiin missään kohden, he vetosivat aina
siihen, että he lähtivät juoksemaan viiden jälessä, ja Imu jäi heistä
astelemaan tietään rauhassa.
— Kuulin.
— Kuulivatko ne toisetkin?
— Kuulivat.
Tuhman jälestä kuulustelin seurueen nuorinta jäsentä. Se oli
hyvälahjainen poika, mutta mestari elkeitä tekemään. Hän kiemurteli
sinne tänne, mutta myönsi vihdoin kuulleensa tieltä käsin jotakin
ääntä.
Syyllinen punehtui.
— En minä heittänyt.
— Kuka heitti?
— Minä en tiedä.
Aika vieri, Imu kävi viimeistä vuottaan koulussa. Hän ei ollut paljo
muuttunut minun silmissäni. Vartalo oli hieman venähtänyt ja
ehostunut, henkiset voimat olivat kehittyneet ilahuttavasti, mutta
muuten oli hän sama lähentymätön ja luokseen laskematon Imu,
kuin ensimmäisellä välitunnillakin poppelipuun juurella. Viimeisenä
vuotena oli hän sijoitettu taloon, jossa oli nuoria poikia ja nuoria
tyttäriä. Hän viihtyi hyvin. Pyhäpäivinä huomasin hänen käyttävän
rusettia, hänen koulupukunsa oli aina putosen puhdas.
— Enpä tiedä.
Monesti teki minun mieleni kysyä Imulta eikö hän ikävöinyt äitiään,
mutta minä en hennonnut kysyä. Eikä mikään viitannut siihen käsin.
Vuosien kuluessa muodostui minulle rohkea, mutta luonnollinen
otaksuma äidin ja pojan keskinäisistä väleistä. Ne olivat kai
semmoiset, että viimemainittu ei olisi äitiään äidiksi tuntenut, jos
tämä olisi sattumalta vastaan osunut.
Unto on hämmästyvinään.
— Karkasihan se.
— Olet sitäpaitsi ollut niin vähän aikaa täällä, että senkin puolesta.