ABSTRACT
This chapter draws from the evocative words and images of the Secret Club artists to help illustrate key aspects of the pregnancy loss experience. It reviews the innovative ways in which the arts and creative rituals–in both therapeutic and self-directed settings–are being used to support families coping with infertility, miscarriage and stillbirth. Art Therapy and other creative approaches can play an important role in illuminating and supporting this specific form of grief, allowing a woman and her partner to express and make sense of the complex feelings that can arise following pregnancy loss. The chapter explores how ‘pregnancy is a task that requires women to become accustomed to profound biological, somatic, and psychological changes and involves achieving a maternal identity’. Pregnancy loss is not a pretty picture. The reality is that a miscarriage can be a bloody, traumatising event.
