Healing of Trauma during Pregnancy, Birth, and the First Years of Life

Norma Tracey is the founder and clinical director of Strong Mothers Inc.

This book brings hope as well as inspiration to health workers, social workers, teachers, and therapists alike. It also provides a model for working with indigenous people who have a history of cultural and societal abuse as well as histories of intergenerational trauma. Tracey’s passion for healing is revealed as is her faith in the ability to heal even for the most traumatized and difficult to reach patients. Her work with traumatized mothers and babies as well as fathers and mothers is truly remarkable. Faith in the analytic process is revealed in these stories of broken lives re-claimed. This volume provides a psychoanalytic model for in depth work with trauma survivors. These are those persons who are often forgotten or dismissed as untreatable. Yet treatable they are, and Norma Tracey’s book demonstrates how this might be thought about and accomplished. In addition, Tracey acknowledges the toll paid by health care workers who often feel confused and overwhelmed by the pain and trauma of their patients, and yet they stay steadfast in their commitment to ongoing learning and ongoing change. Her book will aid them.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsCover StoryIntroductionChapter 1: Psychic Trauma and Its Healing Chapter 2: Inner World Processes During PregnancyChapter 3: Trauma During PregnancyChapter 4: Identifying and Working With Trauma During PregnancyChapter 5: The Psychic Pain of Trauma, Therapy Relating to Trauma During the Newborn PeriodChapter 6: Working With Depressed Mothers in the Early Months of Their Infant’s LifeChapter 7: The Psychic Reality of Becoming a MotherChapter 8: The Autistic Core in Aboriginal TraumaChapter 9: From Oblivion to Being: Faith and CatastropheChapter 10: Precreative SpaceChapter 11: Working with Traumatized Aboriginal Infants and Children in Early Years of LifeChapter 12: The Unspeakable Nature of Trauma Chapter 13: The Transformational Process of Working Through Early Childhood Trauma in Adult Psychotherapy Chapter 14: And in the EndOther Publications by the AuthorReferences IndexAbout the Author