1st Edition
Therapeutic Arts in Pregnancy, Birth and New Parenthood
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.
1. Arts in health: pregnancy, birth and new parenthood; 2. Metaphorically maternal: finding potential space through the experience of grief and loss associated with infertility; 3. Art Therapy and pregnancy loss: a secret grief; 4. Overcoming severe fear in late pregnancy. The use of Art Therapy in maternal healthcare, in the south of Sweden; 5. Lost and found: locating meaning within the landscape of perinatal loss; 6. Reframing motherhood: photography as a creative application to re-image mother; 7. Representations of motherhood: normative and transgressive constructions; 8. Recovery stories: transitional identities and the ambivalence of the maternal experience; 9. 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; 10. ‘Myself as a Tree’: the enabling power of an Art Therapy intervention in clinical work with postnatally distressed women-mothers; 11. Obstetric violence: silenced issues; 12. Artful trans-itions and the queering of pregnancy, birth and (m)othering; 13. Mothering mothers: an exploration of self-referred, self-funded, six-week Art Therapy groups for new mothers; 14. Mechanisms of change within a dyadic model of Art Therapy for parents and their infants; 15. And if the bough breaks: the use of individual Art Therapy within a perinatal mental health service; 16: Cases on the border: perinatal parent-infant work involving migrants, video analysis and art psychotherapy; 17. Art Therapy for motherhood and families as a way to support positive parenting.
Biography
Susan Hogan is Professor of Arts and Health, University of Derby, and a Professorial Fellow, Institute of Mental Health, University of Nottingham. Her books to-date are: Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy; Healing Arts: The History of Art Therapy; Gender Issues in Art Therapy; Conception Diary: Thinking About Pregnancy and Motherhood; Revisiting Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy; The Introductory Guide to Art Therapy; Art Therapy Theories: A Critical Introduction; Arts Therapies and Gender Issues: International Perspectives on Research; Gender and Difference in the Arts Therapies: Inscribed on the Body and The Maternal Tug: Ambivalence, Identity, and Agency.
"This is a very important international contribution to the theory and practice of the arts and arts therapies, addressing the experiences of women over the whole field of childbearing. The editor acknowledges that ideals around pregnancy and childbirth are highly contested, and as can be expected from Professor Hogan, she gives a prominent place to the social, political and cultural context in which childbearing takes place. Many of the carefully selected contributors share very moving personal as well as professional experience. An original, accessible and rigorous account of a somewhat neglected area of work within the arts therapies. Highly recommended."
Professor Diane Waller, OBE, MA(RCA), DPhil, Dip Psych, FRSA, Emeritus Professor of Art Psychotherapy, Goldsmiths University of London, Hon.President British Association of Art Therapists
"This is an important new book, which so usefully helps expand the knowledge of the role of art therapy and therapeutic arts in such a sensitive and intimate clinical area of work. It will help promote the importance we should give to the very beginning of life and the emotional and psychological experiences that are faced by those involved."
Ed Kuczaj, Chair Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapists
"This looks like a fascinating book, of interest to art therapists for our clients, but also for ourselves as a largely female profession."
Dr Sally Skaife, Art Therapist
"This innovative book offers a rich seam of expertise for those working in all fields associated with prospective parents and infants. For arts therapists working with this client group it will be especially enlightening."
Professor Joy Schaverien, PhD, Jungian Psychoanalyst, author of The Revealing Image: Analytical Art Psychotherapy in theory and Practice (1999) and Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the ‘Privileged’ Child (2015)
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