Post-natal Depression: Psychology, Science, and the Transition to Motherhood

Description

This text challenges the expectation that it is normal to be a "happy mother". It provides a critique of the traditional medical and social science explanations of "post natal depression" by supplying a systematic feminist psychological analysis of women's experiences following childbirth. Paula Nicolson argues that, far from it being an abnormal, undesirable, pathological condition, it is rather a normal, healthy response to a series of losses.

"[T]he author's use of the case material conveys how well she can bring together different types of information to make key points and to do so with great clarity."-"Contemporary Psychology "this work suggests we still need to look more closely at taken for granted assumptions in our knowledge about and at the questions we ask about motherhood."-Jenny Littlewood, "Journal of Health Psychology