The Brink of Being: An award-winning exploration of the psychological, emotional, medical, and cultural aspects of miscarriage a

Description

'Intelligent, sensitive, and utterly candid ... It's the sort of book that women have long been searching for, and it feels like real progress. I'm so thankful she wrote it' Meaghan O'Connell, author of AND NOW WE HAVE EVERYTHING It estimated that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage and yet it persists as taboo. In THE BRINK OF BEING, a groundbreaking and essential book, psychotherapist Julia Bueno encourages us to talk about, think more, and reflect upon this often misunderstood, and little discussed event. Drawing on her personal experience of miscarriage, stories from her consulting room, and interviews with medical professionals and researchers, Bueno provides history, context and consolation for anyone who has been through pregnancy loss, or wants to know how to help someone who has. Bueno also investigates miscarriage in terms of how we respond to women's bodies and reproductive health, our attitudes to birth and death, and how we can - and should - encourage more curiosity and candid conversations, in order to better support the many affected by this loss.

Julia Bueno practises full-time as a psychotherapist in London. She has a particular expertise in working with people who have experienced a loss in pregnancy or a struggle to conceive. She was a trustee of the Miscarriage Association and now helps to run a support group for the organisation. Her writing has been published in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Express, Therapy Today and welldoing.org. The Brink of Being is her first book.

'Intelligent, sensitive, and utterly candid ... It's the sort of book that women have long been searching for, and it feels like real progress. I'm so thankful she wrote it' - Meaghan O'Connell, author of And Now We Have Everything 'A thoughtful work that identifies and honours an important passage of life for a great many women' - Julia Leigh, author of Avalanche 'Julia is one of the most intuitive and compassionate and curious psychotherapists around, and in her approach to miscarriage all of these qualities are shown' - Sathnam Sanghera 'Wise and compassionate, Bueno is the friend (and expert) you want when you or a loved one suffers miscarriage, the guide who shepherds you through the stages of devastating grief, anger, loss and recovery that follow. We all desperately need the stories Bueno shares in her book, brilliant narratives that help us to write or reconsider our own around miscarriage. This is a profound game-changer of a book that can not only support women, but can help reshape a society that often ignores or sweeps women's issues under that proverbial rug' - Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is this Tomorrow Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, The Brink of Being is vital reading, both for those who have experienced miscarriage and for the people who want to support them. Through case studies and the author's own experience, we get to understand what miscarriage is and the emotional and physical toll it can take. This is something we still often misunderstand, we don't talk about it, and we don't know how we should feel when it happens to us. I think a lot of people are going to be stronger for reading this - Keith Stuart, author of The Boy Made of Blocks