Nouvelles normalités Nouvelles pathologies Nouvelles ... - Psynem

6° 6éme Congresso Congrès Européen Europeo de di Psicopatologia Psychopathologie dell’Infanzia de l’Enfance e et dell’Adolescenza
de l’Adolescence
Nuove Nouvelles normalità normalités Nuove Nouvelles patologie pathologies Nuove pratiche Nouvelles pratiques
SATURDAY, May 7 SYMPOSIUMS
SYMPOSIUM 10 Perinatality. Prevention and treatment
THE BUILDING UP OF INNER MATERNITY:
A ROUGH PATH BETWEEN SOMATIC AND PSYCHIC BOUNDS
Luigia Cresti, Isabella Lapi, Cristina Pratesi, Laura Mori Florentine Psychotherapy Psychoanalytic Association
The present contribution illustrates some crucial
points of the complex itinerary through which
a woman can build up her “inner maternity”: this
term indicates the process of a psychosomatic
development of female identity and the working
out of the representations of self and of the
baby , elaborated by the woman during pregnancy
and afterwards. A central aspect in this
process is the creation of an "inner tri-dimensional
space" ,an internal container for the “phantasy
baby” ; these internal conditions will greatly
influence the quality of the relationship with the
real “external” baby after the birth.
The theoretical concept of “inner maternity” is
the outcome of a research carried out during the
last ten years -within a group context of psychotherapists
and psychoanalysts- through
an extension of Esther Bick’s method of Infant
Observation.
The aim of our investigation was to explore
the mental events that accompany the “projectbaby”
in the woman’s phantasy (and at the same
time in her body), and moreover analysing those
processes of internal transformation involved in
forming a “maternal atmosphere” and a new
identity of the expectant mother. The observation
has been in actual fact “extended” to the
period of pregnancy, in a fascinating backward
route towards the dawn of the mother-baby
relationship.
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Our observation was carried out in various
contexts and places:
1) Preliminary home-visits with parents - to- be,
before delivery, in “classic” Infant Observation.
2) Meetings with women during the antenatal
classes in Public Health Services
3) Home visits since the beginning of pregnancy
until after birth (the so-called Pre- Infant
Observation)
4) In the ultrasound rooms or outpatient- clinics,
observation and listening to the emotional
responses of women during ultrasound examinations.
5) Sessions with pregnant patients in psychoanalytic
or psychotherapic treatment.
This model has also been applied to interventions
of psychological/psychotherapeutic support
in Peri-natal Unit(in Florence Public Health
Service).
We will present brief observation “flashes” ,
taken from our experiences in antenatal classes,
in which the “normal ambivalence” existing in
pregnancy can be clearly seen; further excerpts
from a prolonged psychotherapy will differently
illustrate the more hindered path towards “inner
maternity”.