ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the work of an early years group for black, Asian and minority ethnic women and their infants and toddlers, who have experienced domestic abuse. It looks at Rahma, her partner Yusuf and the child she was able to bring with her called Ahmad, and their time in the group. In our initial meetings with a family, the link is made between the experience of being a mother and the woman’s own childhood. ‘Ghosts in the nursery’ often appear or are made reference to in this meeting. Salomonsson describes the process of maternal-foetal attachment, in which the pregnant woman’s relationship to her growing foetus is understood. The themes of the uncontained, captivity, holding and enslavement were expressed within the group; they were, felt, depicted and named in a range of ways.
