ABSTRACT
Building on the clinical tools of attunement, resonance, and nervous system tracking presented in Chapter 5, this chapter presents therapeutic techniques for cultivating maternal bodyfulness: sensory awareness skills and sensory vocabulary specific to the maternal transition. The ways emotion regulation, sensations, and sensory awareness are different during the perinatal period compared to other times in life, especially in the context of trauma, are reviewed. The foundational principles of working with sensory awareness are explained, including slowing down, experiential real-time tracking of sensations, agency, and non-judgmental curiosity. Principles for introducing clients to developing sensory awareness and somatic self-regulation skills and building maternal sensory vocabulary are presented. With a new language for perinatal sensations, the expecting or new mother can build experiential knowledge of her maternal bodily sensations, thereby expanding and asserting her maternal body narrative and subjectivity, which is the foundation for the processing of trauma.
