ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the narratives of maternal mental illness, and in particular, it highlights the uniqueness of a woman's experience and how important it is to acknowledge this specificity of illness and treat the woman as a whole, rather than simply addressing her symptoms. The common themes explored are ‘lack of knowledge’, ‘exhaustion’, ‘loss in the transition to motherhood’, ‘the gap between fantasy and reality – unmet expectations’, the sense of being ‘attacked’ by the illness, ‘disconnection’, ‘health anxiety’, ‘madness’, ‘seeking help only at crisis level’ and finally ‘masks’ women admit to ‘wearing’ to hide their illness. The chapter ends with a client vignette about a woman who was unable to put her baby down due to extreme anxiety.
