ABSTRACT
The inner space, the womb and its mental representations, is unique to women and is crucial to motherhood. To be deprived of the womb is to experience a true loss of power in a uniquely female way. One phenomenon concerns 'inner space', a term used by E. Erikson to describe not only pregnancy and childbirth, but also lactation and all parts of the female anatomy associated with fullness, warmth, and generosity. The study of some of the characteristics of the female libido and of other features which are exclusive to the female inner world might help us to understand the aetiology of perversion in women. Young women feel awkward and insecure in dealing with their powerful feelings about the tremendous changes taking place inside and outside their bodies, and sometimes they are not supported by their mothers in their acknowledgement of their sense of femininity.
