ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits the notion of maternal function as proposed by the Ecole de Paris, believing that this approach expands the possibilities of reflection on psychopathology that have had an impact on psychoanalytic clinical work. It tries to reflect upon the consequences of an insufficiency of the maternal function. The concept of maternal function covers libidinal investments towards the infant and what the mother disposes to the infant that will lead the way to the autoeroticisms and the constitution of hallucinatory processes, which are the bedrock for the processes of symbolisation/representation. The chapter discusses some episodes of the psychoanalytic process of a twenty-five-year-old woman, who has been bulimic since the age of fifteen. In the case of bulimia, there is a desperate attempt to incorporate food/mother-object to fill the void of an internal object. P. Aulagnier suggests that the existence of the secret may reveal a vital part of psychic functioning.
