The Mother Wound: A Jungian and Psychoanalytic Approach to De- Idealization and Internal Maternal Repair (April 17, 2026)

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Lyna Tevenaz Jones, MA, is an analytic psychotherapist in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her work integrates analytical psychology, psychoanalytic theory, Self Psychology theory, and attachment research. She earned her master’s degree in counseling psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where her thesis, Archetypal Reparenting: Constellating Archetypal Parental Figures to Reparent the Self, explored the role of archetypal structures in the repair of early attachment wounds.Her clinical and theoretical interests center on mother and father wounds, individuation, internal psychic structure, and the symbolic processes through which adults reorganize attachment and self-cohesion. She is particularly interested in how Jungian and psychoanalytic models can be articulated together without reduction or bypass. She curates the online community Women of Depth Psychology.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Differentiate clinically between the personal mother, the maternal selfobject, and the maternal archetype. Participants will learn to understand how the unresolved idealization of the personal mother contributes to the persistence of the mother wound.

2. Identify the psychic stages involved in healing the mother wound, including de-idealization, withdrawal of archaic projection, and mature mourning, from both a Jungian and Self Psychology perspective.

3. Articulate how an internal maternal function can be re-constructed symbolically and structurally, without bypassing mourning, collapsing into self-soothing defenses, or replacing the therapeutic relationship.

This presentation will examine the mother wound as an intrapsychic and structural phenomenon rooted in early disruptions of maternal function.

Drawing on object relations theory, Self Psychology, attachment research, and Jungian analytical psychology, the workshop will explore how persistent idealization of the personal mother may interfere with psychic differentiation, mourning, and the consolidation of a cohesive self.

Particular attention will be paid to the psychic distinction between the real mother, internal maternal selfobject functions, and the maternal archetype, and to how unconscious archetypal projections can bind the individual to an impossible expectation of the personal mother.

The presentation will outline the processes of de-idealization, withdrawal of archaic projection, and the arc of mature grief as central developmental tasks and will consider how an internal maternal function may be symbolically and structurally established without bypassing mourning or substituting for the analytic relationship.

Clinical implications and ethical limits of this work will be discussed with an emphasis on analytic containment, developmental repair, and individuation.

San Antonio Society for Psychoanalytic Studies upcoming events

The Mother Wound: A Jungian and Psychoanalytic Approach to De- Idealization and Internal Maternal Repair (April 17, 2026)