Three’s a Crowd: Stella’s Pregnancy and the Arrival of an “Other” in A Streetcar Named Desire
by Dan Jacobs, MD
Abstract
This paper explores the difficulties that may arise for some men when their wives become pregnant. The advent of a child may threaten the intense marital dyadic relationship on which a man may depend. The author explores how this particular threat to a husband’s sense of security is manifest dramatically in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. In this reading of the play, Stella’s pregnancy and Stanley‘s feelings about it lie at the heart of the drama.
International Journal of Applied Psychoanal Studies, 16:3, 174–180,
September 2019
Link to Online Publication [fulltext can be requested from the library]
About the Author:
Dan Jacobs, MD, is a BPSI Training and Supervising Analyst and Director of our library. He is the author of The Distance from Home (2019), The Supervisory Encounter (1995), as well as numerous psychoanalytic articles and book reviews. Among his other publications are Edward Bibring Photographs the Psychoanalysts of His Time (1932-1938) (2005) and Grete Bibring: A Culinary Biography (2015).
Previous Posts:
Fred Busch (2020). The Clinical Significance and Problems of a Traumaticentric View. In Trauma and the Destructive-Transformative Struggle: Clinical Perspectives, edited by Terrence McBride and Maureen Murphy. Routledge, p. 187-194.
Jeremy P. Nahum (2019). Louis Sander: Remembrances and Reflections on His Contributions.
James M. Herzog (2019). “Polarity, Paradox and the Organizing Process in Development”; Parent-Infant Psychotherapy and Child Analytic Technique: In Honor of Louis Sander. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 39:1, 98-108.
Lora Heims Tessman, PhD (2019). Momentums of Meeting. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 39 (1): 88-97.
Jane Hanenberg, EdD (2019). Review of the book Demons in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Genocide, Slavery and Extreme Trauma in Psychoanalytic Practice ed. by Adrienne Harris, Margery Kalb, and Susan Klebanoff. American Imago 76(2), 274-278.
Paola M. Contreras, PsyD (2019). Working with the Human Trafficking Survivor: What Counselors, Psychologists, Social Workers and Medical Professionals Need to Know. In Working with the Human Trafficking Survivor: What Counselors, Psychologists, Social Workers and Medical Professionals Need to Know, edited by Mary C. Burke. Routledge, pp. 61-80.
Rodrigo Barahona, PsyaD (2019). Unlaid Ghosts: A Discussion Of Maria Grazia Oldoini’s “Abusive Relations and Traumatic Development: Marginal Notes on a Clinical Case”. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 88:2, 277-295.
Sarah L. Lusk, PhD (2019). A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Complexity of Understanding and Treating Patients with ADHD Beyond Childhood: The Experiences of Two Psychoanalytic Candidates. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 72:1, 61-70.
Anthony D. Bram, PhD, ABAP, FABP (2019). The Subjective Impact of Separation and Divorce on a Latency-Aged Child and His Analysis. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 72:24-32.
Anna Ornstein, MD (2019). Six Million and One: a documentary. In Cinematic Reflections on the Legacy of the Holocaust: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, edited by Diana Diamond and Bruce Sklarew. Routledge, p. 40-50.
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