The Mother Within the Mother

This paper describes the subjective experience of internalization, focusing on the daughter's inner world as the encounters becoming and being a mother. Three case vignettes at three phases of a woman's mothering cycle are used to demonstrate modes of registration and expression of her own internalized mother as these in turn involve her offspring. Some issues in analyzing the new mother are raised by the material, as well as implied questions about how "mothering" behaviors emerge at later junctures.