Pre and Perintal Psychology

This article examines the link between the painter Vincent van Gogh’s creative activity and the influence of his earliest relational experiences on his work and paintings.

This article discusses ways conscious conception encompasses physical, emotional, spiritual, and practical considerations that prepare parents to welcome, nurture, and parent their baby, and that form foundations for bonding and secure attachment.

This article discusses a 44-item questionnaire developed to investigate the axes along which maternal models are organized. It was predicted that two primary axes, warmth and invasiveness, would be identified, and questionnaire data were collected from mothers in Great Britain and Hungary. The predicted axes were confirmed and a 14-item short-form questionnaire, with good psychometric properties, was derived.

Preverbal contents need special attention in the therapeutic process, due to their difficult accessibility and the tendency to be actuated in the therapeutic relationship. In this article, the author describes how essential steps in intrauterine development are linked to the symbolic representation of the mother-child unit and emphasizes the importance of body-related experiences in curing preverbal traumas. 

This article describes the benefits of The Calming Womb Family Therapy Model (CWFTM) is a multi-modal, integrative, early intervention approach to treating mothers and their babies from conception through the first year postnatally.

Using a three-round hybrid Delphi methodology, the current study utilized a panel of “expert” birth professionals (n=20 after three rounds) to examine content and logistical factors that may be most effective for inclusion in the design, development, and delivery of pre- and perinatal (PPN) parenting programs of the 21^st century.

From JOPPPAH 21(1), Fall, 2006, this article, after introducing the sandplay© method developed by Dora Kalff, explores the images seen in the work of sandplay© clients that may depict birth and/or prenatal experiences. 

Reprinted from JOPPPAH 23(2) Winter, 2008. This article investigates the relationship between traumatic events from conception to birth and Schizoid Personality Disorder, Dysfunction, and Deprivation.

Updated Author Bio:

Shirley Ward works as a Pre and Perinatal Psychotherapist at the Amethyst Resource Centre For Human Development in the Republic of Ireland. Her book, Fractals from the Womb, published in 2014 is to be republished shortly. She may be contacted on her website www.shirleyward.org  and on her email shirley@shirleyward.org 

This paper focuses on the topic of childbirth, exploring the history of its marginalization within the humanities. This paper demonstrates that ignoring birth on an intellectual level contributes to diminishing the topic more broadly on the cultural level, and this has real-world implications for how our societies treat children, women, and families.

This article was originally published in the Pre- and Peri-natal Psychology Journal 8(3) (Spring 1994),187-199. This paper draws on the latest scientific findings to show how specific changes in 1) parenthood, 2) birthing practices, and 3) how we view ourselves (psychology) could transform the world.