Existential Crisis of Motherhood

Claire Arnold-Baker is a counselling psychologist and existential psychotherapist specialising in working with mothers. She is also Course Leader of the DCPsych Programme, a joint programme with The New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling and Middlesex University, UK.

• Part I Existential Crisis: The philosophical tensions of being a mother.- 1 Introduction; Claire Arnold-Baker.- 2 Motherhood is a confrontation with existence; Claire Arnold-Baker.- 3 The corporeal dimensions of motherhood; Julie McCarthy.- 4 Existential responsibility of motherhood; Victoria Garland.- 5 The existential freedom of mothers; Naomi Stadlen.- 6 Engaging with uncertainty and unresolved meanings during the transition to motherhood; Elizabeth Simmons.- Part II Maternal Mental Health Crisis: Understanding maternal mental health from an existential perspective.- 7 Through the lens of trauma: the experience of mothering a very premature baby in the first year after hospital discharge; Romy Shulman.- 8 Postnatal depression: An existential crisis?; Miriam Donaghy.- 9 Maternal postnatal depression: The father’s experience; Farasat Sadia.- Part III Social Crisis: An existential understanding of the impact on motherhood of social and cultural aspects.- 10 Identity and mothering: The second generation of Ghanaian migrants; Jennifer Ofori.- 11 Motherhood and the traumatic death of one’s child; Susan Harris.- 12 Trying to ‘have-it-all’, the choice of motherhood; Naomi Magnus.- 13 The experience of being a childfree woman; Josephine Coates-Davies.- Part IV Working with existential crisis in clinical practice.- 14 Exploring the moods of first-time mothers through imagery; Aoife Gaffney.- 15 Existential group work with mothers; Claire Arnold-Baker and Victoria Garland.- 16 Conclusion: The courage to be; Claire Arnold-Baker.