Utilising her wealth of material and experience, the author explores various aspects of 'the inside story' of pregnancy. She answers such questions as: What meanings does childbearing have in the internal world? How does a pregnant woman live with two people under her skin? What is the expectant partner's experience? Which dreams, fears and fantasies proliferate around pregnancy and birth?

This text focuses on the interweaving psychic realities and unconscious dynamics between family members in the context of changing patterns of socio-cultural expectations, ethical considerations and biological realities.

A collection of lectures by eminent members of the British Psycho-analytical Society. Includes papers on the experience of having a baby, pregnancy and the internal world, pregnancy after stillbirth or neonatal death, and therapeutic intervention for post-partum disturbance.

Childbearing seems eternal, primordial and universal. Yet human reproduction in the 21st century is in a state of flux. This accessible book highlights dramatic changes that have occurred over the last decades, focusing on both individual and cross-cultural diversity across the now elongated childbearing cycle and the uniqueness of desire and em