ABSTRACT

Therapeutic Arts in Pregnancy, Birth and New Parenthood explores the use of arts in relation to infertility, pregnancy, childbirth and new parenthood. It is the first book to bring all these subjects together into one accessible volume with an international perspective.

The book looks at the role of the arts in health with respect to the pregnancy journey, from conception to new parenthood. It introduces readers to the ways in which art is being used with women who are experiencing different stages of childbearing – who may be unable to conceive and are struggling with infertility treatment, or who experience miscarriage and loss, a traumatic birth, or grief over the loss of a baby. It also elucidates how art-making offers a means for women to express and understand their changed sense of self-identity and sexuality as a result of pregnancy and motherhood.

The book has an international compass and is essential reading for arts therapy trainees and arts in health courses and will also be of interest to other health professionals and artists.

chapter 1|8 pages

Arts in health

Pregnancy, birth and new parenthood

chapter 2|13 pages

Metaphorically maternal

Finding potential space through the experience of grief and loss associated with infertility

chapter 3|20 pages

Art Therapy and pregnancy loss

A secret grief

chapter 4|11 pages

Overcoming severe fear in late pregnancy

The use of Art Therapy in maternal healthcare, in the south of Sweden

chapter 5|18 pages

Lost and found

Locating meaning within the landscape of perinatal loss

chapter 6|17 pages

Reframing motherhood

Photography as a creative application to re-image mother

chapter 7|19 pages

Representations of motherhood

Normative and transgressive constructions

chapter 8|17 pages

Recovery stories

Transitional identities and the ambivalence of the maternal experience

chapter 9|14 pages

Where can we make our home?

In-utero images and thinking in the running of a small therapeutic group for mothers and their young children affected by domestic abuse

chapter 10|14 pages

‘Myself as a Tree’

The enabling power of an Art Therapy intervention in clinical work with postnatally distressed women-mothers

chapter 11|13 pages

Obstetric violence

Silenced issues

chapter 13|13 pages

Mothering mothers

An exploration of self-referred, self-funded, six-week Art Therapy groups for new mothers

chapter 15|18 pages

And if the bough breaks

The use of individual Art Therapy within a perinatal mental health service

chapter 16|15 pages

Cases on the border

Perinatal parent–infant work involving migrants, video analysis and art psychotherapy