About this episode

The episode discusses maternal infanticide through an archetypal lens, featuring insights from Dr. Brooke Laufer.

Lindsay Clancy has brought renewed attention to the horror of infanticide: babies and children dying at the hands of their mother. Infanticide has taken place for millennia, most often due to social pressures or lack of the resources needed to raise a child. Human collectives around the world remain ill-equipped to protect our youngest by providing support to mothers in material or emotional distress. Today’s guest is clinical psychologist Dr. Brooke Laufer, author of Uncovering the Act of Maternal Infanticide from a Psychological, Political, and Jungian Perspective. Brooke joins us to discuss infanticide, maternal psychosis, and the archetype of the death mother, long portrayed in myth. The Hindu goddess Kali births and nourishes her children -- and also devours them. In Greek myth Medea kills her children after her husband’s abandonment and betrayal. The Black Madonna offers a potentially healing combination of the maternal and the fierce. The debate raging around Lindsay Clancy’s case asks us not to take sides but to integrate the dark realities of motherhood instead of splitting those off and only acknowledging an idealized version of the maternal. Although motherhood is…

People in this episode

Hosts: Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, Lisa Marchiano

Guest: Dr. Brooke Laufer

Topics covered

• maternal infanticide
• psychology
• archetypes
• motherhood
• mental health
• mythology

Keywords

• infanticide
• maternal psychosis
• archetype of the death mother
• Kali
• Medea
• Black Madonna
• motherhood
• psychology

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Uncovering the Act of Maternal Infanticide from a Psychological, Political, and Jungian Perspective

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