ABSTRACT
Women who have recently given birth are tired, distracted, and weary from the overwhelming worry. When depression or anxiety is part of this picture, life with a new baby can feel, and be, unimaginably difficult. Every postpartum woman is preoccupied, whether she is depressed or not. This is not the best time to insert a therapeutic relationship and time-intensive healing process. But if her symptoms of depression and anxiety are acute enough, if she is sick enough, if her thoughts are distorted enough, she needs help. The incompatibility between motherhood and a sense of control is apparent to most new moms almost immediately. It feels incomprehensible for moms to cling to a desire for control and autonomy while they simultaneously struggle to connect with and take care of their dependent infant. Resistance to therapy is as old as therapy itself. A professor in graduate school declared that if one does not encounter resistance to therapy, it is not working.
