Synopsis

At times of birth whole families can go off the rails; the experience may be overwhelming, not only for the mother, but also for the father and the children. Seeking information about the singular phenomenon of birth, Eric Rhode visited a unit for mothers, many of them puerperal breakdown

Reviews

A work in the mould of Oliver Sacks‘s studies of the neurologically sick, a diary of a physician‘s thoughts thrown up while practising the craft of treatment, and it breathes the sane air common to all good teachers - Nigel Williams, Listener

One of the deepest and most sensitive studies I have read. It should interest anyone seriously concerned with literature, philosophy, religion and the mysteries of ordinary live. - Richard Mayne, Encounter

Rhode is rich in ideas that are marvellous, in the sense of the word that the Surrealists used – magical, breath-taking, spouting from a sumptuous vein of his own unconscious...the entire book is self-consciously in the form of a series of meditations of a doctor-philosopher, a sort of Religio Medici for our times. He condenses image into a dense, suggestive mass; he adores infinity - Angela Carter, London Review of Books

What drove these mother’s crazy was, what led some to nurse murderous designs on their new-born? Rhode listened; and time and time again, he heard the baby itself being victimised as malign, invasive, destructive...Baby turns the mother into a displaced person...No wonder the womb has been such an object of awe - Roy Porter