ABSTRACT
We are all guilty of the wish to murder, all subject to thoughts of killing and all capable of extreme violence in fantasy. But to translate such feelings into action requires some other, qualitative shift from ordinary fantasy to extraordinary behaviour. What happens when murderous wishes, either unconscious or indeed conscious, are actualised? Why can’t thoughts be kept in the mind rather than acted out? In this chapter I will address the specific dynamics of mothers who kill, at moments of disastrous identification both with their infants and with their own depriving/killing mothers.
