The Female Body & Motherhood
A seminar with A/Prof. Frances Thomson-Salo
As therapists, we witness the many overlapping and often confusing aspects of motherhood. How do we comprehend the sensuality of motherhood for example from birth to death, including the place of sensuality in aging motherhood? How does the female body continue to play a part in mothering at all stages of life, including menopause? At this practical seminar for psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors, A/Prof. Frances… Show more Thomson-Salo draws on her global & long-standing psychoanalytical experience to explain how we can view motherhood as both an instinctual drive and a social construct, how the female body prepares for motherhood from the first year of life and the wide-ranging clinical challenges that we can face as therapists. In particular, the seminar encourages us to look at the embodied communication & narcissistic fantasies inherent in motherhood and prepares us for the signals that the maternal body in psychological distress may be sending. We look at applying our theoretical understanding to our therapeutic interactions – considering how motherhood may ‘open the door’ to perversion & whether any manifestations may be considered as normal. Overall, the seminar helps us as therapists to keep the ‘motherhood’ aspect in mind in our interactions with female clients.
About the speaker
A/Prof. Frances Thomson-Salo trained as a child and adult psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytic Society and held the post of President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Association. She is Overall Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association Committee of Women in Psychoanalysis and a member of the Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Apart from being the Consultant Infant Mental Health clinician, Royal Women's Hospital; she is also a senior child psychotherapist at The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, and an Honorary Fellow of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. She is on the teaching faculty for the University of Melbourne Graduate Diploma/Masters in Health Sciences. Her books include The Female Body: Inside and Outside (The International Psychoanalytical Association Psychoanalytic Ideas and Applications Series) (Karnac Books, 2013), Masculinity and Femininity Today (Psychoanalysis and Women Series) (Karnac, 2013), Women and Creativity: A Psychoanalytic Glimpse Through Art, Literature, and Social Structure (Psychoanalysis and Women Series) (Karnac, 2014) and Infant Observation (Editor, 2014, Karnac) (which has been translated into French, Turkish, Vietnamese and Chinese). She is a member of the international advisory board of The International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin and the International Editorial Advisory Board of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China .
Seminar Schedule
5:45PM: Registration
6:00PM: Session 1: Getting to motherhood
In this first session we comprehend the roots of motherhood & the female body’s preparation for it from the first year. Specifically, we explore:
new thinking about fantasies and the experience of birth, embodied communication and sensuality
the widening scope of therapeutic interventions, with the help of case vignettes)
6:45PM: Session 2: Motherhood & Sensuality
In the second session, we look at both infant sensuality and the sensuality of motherhood. Our attempt is to understand:
the role of sensuality and its place in aging motherhood
maternal instinctual drive and social construction of motherhood – how the body silently continues to play a part
7:30PM: Coffee Break
7:45PM: Session 3: Motherhood and therapeutic challenges
In the last session we consider how motherhood may ‘open the door’ to perversion, and whether any manifestations can be considered as normal. We look at:
the fine edge of maternal investment with hatred and perversion
what does the maternal body in psychological distress or disturbance tell us
how we can help as therapists
.
9:00PM: Close
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