RESPONSE

Comment on Robert Whyte's Paper `Giving and Taking'John Rowan

I have been reading the paper entitled `Giving and Taking: The foetal-maternalplacental junction as a prototype and precursor of object relations' in the Spring 1991issue of the Journal. The case vignette is perfectly acceptable and interesting but I wantto take issue with some of the argument leading up to it.

The author says: `Although Stern (1985) has shown that perceptual memories ofsounds heard in the womb exist in young babies, the idea of any mental functioningcomplex enough to be called psychological life occurring before birth seems verydoubtful to me'. To start with, Stern is not a researcher into prenatal life (he has donesome research on mother-baby interactions) and to quote him as if he were is misleading.In any case he says hardly anything about the matter. The author does not mention thepeople who do write about this, such as Verny (1982) and Ridgway (1989).

He says `Laing (1983) joins with Freud in considering that Rank's theory of birthtrauma has no place in the scientific scheme of things'. This seems an odd misreading:the truth is that in that book Laing embraces not only the theory of birth trauma (see alsoJanov 1983, Grof 1985), but also the theory of foetal trauma, implantation trauma andconception trauma, and quotes people like Mott (1959), Peerbolte (1975), Swartley (1978) and Lake (1980) in support of such ideas. He also quotes Winnicott as being infavour of the idea of birth trauma (p. 94). Perhaps the author of this article is not familiarwith the work of Laing, because he says many of the same things in his earlier book TheFacts of Life.

None of the medical textbooks known to me mention a distinction between a foetalplacenta and a maternal placenta. It seems that different authorities have somewhatdifferent views as to the precise nomenclature here. The whole of the placenta, as Iunderstand it, is foetal material, and comes from the original fertilised gamete. It allbelongs to the foetus, in that sense, and merely pushes out villi into the uterine wall,which responds by forming sinuses for the easy transfer of maternal blood. The mother,as it were, responds to the placenta but does not have a placenta. As I say, it may be thatsome specialists divide up the matter differently but I think this is the prevalent view.

The most extraordinary statement made in this article, however, is this: `During theprenatal period the object relation is exclusively with the mother. Consciousness has notyet supervened in the infant (Fenichel 1946)'. To make a dogmatic statement that thefoetus has no consciousness (I don't know what else the words may mean) is bad enoughbut to quote a dead psycho-analyst as an authority on this is beyond the pale. Thereferences already mentioned summarise enormous amounts of good evidence on this,which are more recent and quite striking. This is from actual research on the live foetusnot some reconstruction from indirect angles. It is really not on to quote Fenichel as anauthority on this sort of thing.

The final point I want to take issue with is where the author says - `The physical

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exchange would seem to be one which approaches the ideal. The foetus is not aware ofany frustration or deprivation'. Again this is to ignore the whole work of manyinvestigators which show that the womb can be a very dangerous and unpleasant placefor the foetus - not as a rare exception but as a common occurrence. Just as it makessense to speak of the good breast and the bad breast, so it makes sense to speak of thegood womb and the bad womb. The main difference is that bad womb experiences areeven worse and even more frightening than bad breast experiences, because the chanceof any real escape is not there. I have argued (Rowan 1988) that traumatic experiences inthe womb can actually foster the emergence of a separate ego consciousness in thefoetus, stimulated into existence by the events themselves.

As I have said, the actual case material in the paper seems fine and of real interest -it is just these preparatory moves I find objectionable.

References

Grof, S. (1985) Beyond the Brain. Albany: SUNY Press.Janov, A. (1983) Imprints. New York: Coward McCann.Laing, R.D. (1983) The Voice of Experience. Penguin.Lake, F. (1980) Constricted Confusion. Oxford: Clinical Theology Association.Mott, F. (1959) The Nature of the Self. London: Allen Wingate.Peerbolte, L. (1975) Psychic Energy in Prenatal Dynamics. Wassenaar: Servire.Ridgway, R. (1987) The Unborn Child. Aldershot: Wildwood House.Rowan, J. (1988) Primal Integration. In Innovative Therapy in Britain (Eds. J. Rowan &

W.Dryden). Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Swartley, W. (1978) Major categories of early traumas. In The Undivided Self (Ed. J.

Rowan). London: Churchill Centre.Verny, T. (1982) The Secret Life of the Unborn Child. London: Sphere.