Finding Your Way with Your Baby: The Emotional Life of Parents and Babies

Finding Your Way with Your Baby explores the emotional experience of the baby in the first year and the mother, father, and other significant adults, informed by latest research in neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and infant observation. It also acknowledges the difficult emotional experiences that are often glossed over in parenting books, such as bonding, ambivalence, depression, and the emotional turmoil of being a new parent, offering a sense of relief that can help parents harness the power of knowing, owning, and sharing feelings to transform situations and break negative cycles.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 250 pages
Publication date: 09 September 2021
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Finding Your Way with Your Baby delves into the emotional journey of both the baby and the mother, father, and other significant adults during the first year. This revised edition is enriched with the latest research in neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and infant observation, as well as decades of clinical expertise. It also sheds light on significant new discoveries regarding the profound restructuring of the mother's brain during the transition to parenthood, a phenomenon known as 'matrescence.' The authors engage candidly with the often overlooked emotional challenges faced by parents, such as bonding, ambivalence towards the baby, depression, and the emotional turmoil of becoming a new parent. Recognizing and understanding this darker aspect of family life provides a sense of relief that empowers parents to harness the power of knowledge, ownership, and sharing of feelings to transform situations, break negative cycles, and cultivate new, positive ways of relating.

The book remains a valuable resource for parents, as well as professionals seeking insights from psychoanalytic clinical practice, including health visitors, midwives, social workers, general practitioners, pediatricians, and childcare workers. Through real-life examples, the book offers practical guidance and support for navigating the intricacies of parenthood and fostering healthy emotional development for both parents and their children.

Weight: 342g
Dimension: 139 x 216 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367533694
Edition number: 2 New edition