Knowing Mothers Researching Maternal Identity Change [Paperback]

How do women experience the identity changes involved in becoming mothers for the first time? Throughout in depth case examples, Wendy Hollway demonstrates how a different research methodology, underpinned by a psychoanalytically informed epistemology, can transform our understanding of the early foundations of maternal identity.PART I: A PSYCHO-SOCIAL RESEARCH PROJECT EXAMPLE: INTRODUCING PRINCIPLES, METHODS AND PRACTICES 1. Introduction: Knowing Mothers, Researching Becoming 2. Empirical Psycho-social Research: Design and Psychoanalytically Informed Principles 3. The Reality of Being a Young Girl: Agency, Imagination and Objectivity PART II: THREE PSYCHO-SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES ON KNOWING AND BECOMING: PSYCHOANALYTICALLY INFORMED THEORISING IN MOTHERS' AND RESEARCHERS' KNOWING 4. Weird Beyond Words: The Transgressive Corporeality of Pregnancy and Com-passion Based Ethics 5. Psychoanalytically Informed Data Analysis 6. Scenic Writing and Scenic Understanding PART III: ANALYSING THE POLITICS OF THE MATERNAL PSYCHO-SOCIALLY 7. 'I'm Not the Mother Type': Gender Identity Upheaval 8. Theorising Maternal Becoming Psycho-socially Conclusion 9. Unfinished Business

Hollway delves into the complexity of maternalidentity to shed light on a deeply subjective time of human existence gravelyoverlooked in the masculine research domains of mental and physical health andmedicine. & Hollway offers researchers and helping professionals a place tostart in the development of a psychosocial approach to researching the lessevident realms of human intra-and intersubjectivity. & Hollways book isremarkable and ground breaking. (Aparna Mishra, Univeristy of Durham, Centrefor Medical Humanities, centreformedicalhumanities.org, January, 2016)

'In Knowing Mothers, Wendy Hollway reflects deeply about the connection between how we live mothering and how we think about it. She invites us to witness her journey of discovery as she develops an innovative, multi-layered resealS.