"The mother who suppresses the woman - as happened in the patriarchal version of motherhood - or the woman who denies the mother - as happens in our hypermodern era - are not two depictions of the mother, but two equally pathological deviations. This book stands on this, without at all intending to limit motherhood to its pathology. Lacan's teaching showed that the essence of desire as not entirely absorbed in that of the mother is the essential condition for the mother's desire to be creative. Only if the mother's gaze is not exclusively focused on the child's existence, can motherhood fulfill its function. This is what psychoanalysis teaches daily: Only if the mother is not entirely a mother, can the child experience the absence that makes possible its entry into the world of symbols and culture."