Mother and Daughter Prisoners of Guilt: A Discussion of Freudian and Kleinian Theory

Abstract

The present article starts from questions raised about the discussion of the feeling of guilt in the mother and daughter relation, mainly from the theories of Freud on the importance of the fault of the emotional development of the individuals and Melanie Klein’s on the fundamental paper in the fault on the capacity to make repairs. Our objective is to investigate how possible flaws in the processes of elaboration of ambivalent conflicts may bring guilt, rather than becoming a conductive device to this development, to become an obstacle. Finally, still based on Freud and Klein, we will address the specificities of guilt in this relationship and how it can make it difficult to construct and separate this bond.