Medea, a Reading of Hatred in Light of the Clinic of Mothers and Children

This article attempts a reading of the tragedy of Medea in light of the clinical work on mother–child relationship. Medea demonstrates the separation between the position of the mother and that of the feminine, she represents an extreme point of an “outlaw” maternity and she destroys the myth of a joyful motherhood. In order to take revenge from Jason and to castrate him, Medea murders her children, which are reduced to a status of pure real objects. This is a research of clinical situations where the instrumentalisation of the child and a moment of desubjectivation allow violence; and where the child becomes the subject of hate although it is not its real target. The child is misrecognized as a subject in favour of what it represents for its mother.