ABSTRACT
The recognition of the cycle of abuse in young women who become mothers is a painful but crucial issue, especially when court reports are requested as evidence for life-changing decisions regarding the future of mother and baby. The close attention, monitoring, and care involved in evaluating maternal abilities place much pressure on the mother and her "satellite" baby. The usual response is to present the "best mothering", the baby representing the good part, both inside and outside the mother's body. The mourning is intermittently forgotten, and a complex and multiple identification takes place: the mother becomes both the lost baby and the new baby, and the fantasy of "the forever mother", the maternal body endlessly producing new pregnancies, becomes both an illusory and a concrete reality. This chapter provides a clinical example the pervasiveness of the cycle of abuse through the maternal body and through the generations in the production of inadequate and inappropriate mothering.
