Last week I posted asking if anyone had read a paper in the Journal of Child
Psychotherapy that described a case of pathological breastfeeding. Today I
got a hold of it and it is truly the worst paper describing breastfeeding
ever written (well at least the worse that I have read and it was only
published in 1993). It describes a case of a woman who comes to this guy for
help with insomnia. It turns out that the woman has a 5 month old baby with
whom she cosleeps and who breastfeeds at night. Well the professional
relationship extends over a couple of years and the psychotherapist
attributes all sorts of stuff to the breastfeeding relationship that is
pathological (incl that the woman is breastfeeding her child because the
father of her child left her, her mother was uncaring and dies of breast
cancer, she is being provocative to men by breastfeeding, she is making use
of her breast as the child of her father did his penis etc etc). Quite
extraordinary.
The authors refer to the well known 'weaning problems' of african children
that breastfeed frequently and for extended periods and to the work of one
Christine Leboube (In Mali, Kathy D) who found that in famine (this is my
interpretation and doesn;t make sense to me) the breast is unimportant as a
source of food and becomes 'no more than an object of pleasure.'

Anyway, this paper is useful to me in showing why women breastfeeding older
adopted children may cop flak because of the 'professionals' view of such
practices but just imagine someone reading this who knew nothing of
breastfeeding.  For those interested here is the cite again. Lebovici and
Kestemberg (1993). Journal of Child Psychotherapy 19: 5-29.

Karleen Gribble
Australia

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