ABSTRACT
The influence that pregnancy has on a woman's psyche has a sequel in childbed. In the first place a readjustment is necessitated by the fact that the child is no longer part of the maternal body but has completely become an object in the outside world. Secondly, there is the further complication resulting from the fact that the child has also become an independent being for other persons who have emotional relationships with the mother and often appears as a competitor of hers. The woman's relationship to her husband is complicated above all by the fact that a large part of the libidinal ties that resulted from her maternal attitude to him are transferred from him to the child. The ambivalent attitude to the child that manifested itself during pregnancy was suppressed by the narcissistic valuation of the child as identical with her own ego, but now that the unity has been broken up, it gains in intensity.
