Extract from the introduction to
A Time to be Born

When my daughter was conceived, twelve years on in my career, I was hungry for inner life, yet felt the losses as any new mother. At first we find we've lost sole tenancy of our own bodies. Later we give up our sleep, our old interests, thinking of ourselves as the centre of our own lives. What my baby wanted became the centre of my universe.

Now, in my work as psychotherapist, I see again and again the importance of that mirror gaze, where the baby sees reflected in its mother's face its own value. When it sees that it is the most loved and valuable being in the whole world, a honeypot is set inside the baby that will nourish it through the rest of its life.

Jeni Couzyn • 1999

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Poems Copyright © Jeni Couzyn, 1983, 1985, 1999.
Drawings Copyright © Claire Weissman Wilks 1975, 1983, 1999. All rights reserved.
Legal notice: No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise without written permission from the copyright owners and the publisher. Jeni Couzyn and Claire Weissman Wilks have asserted their rights under section 77 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.