Mother as maker: moving towards an embodied understanding using a heuristic arts-based method

Background Within research, there is little focus given to the profound psychological changes for a woman when she becomes a mother. Literature is held within patriarchal foundations where cultural imagery idealises maternity. Despite knowledge that suicide is the leading cause of death in women during the perinatal period, guidelines remain heavily focused on physical health implications during this time.Aims The author explored her own transitional experience of new motherhood, positioning the mother as a creative, reflexive container within the mother–child dyad. In this, the author aimed to bring the complexity of the maternal experience to the forefront of knowledge.Methods The author used a heuristic arts-based method to keep the tacit dimension of creativity active, using process-led art practice as a means to make implicit knowledge available to research.Results The art object was the container to hold the conflicting emotions that were part of the experience of new motherhood. The process of making art deepened connection to the sensory bodily understanding of the experience, increasing emotional availability and relational capacity in the maternal dyad.Conclusions There is a deep need to normalise the emotional and psychological shifts that accompany childbirth and mothering. Making art can create space to think about the reality of these experiences from a place of embodied understanding.Implications for policy, practice and future research Art psychotherapy could help mothers by opening up relational dialogue and facilitating connections. This could support more realistic and honest perceptions of the complexity of the mothering experience.Plain-language summary Within research, there is little focus given to the profound psychological changes for a woman when she becomes a mother. Literature is held within male-dominated social systems where cultural imagery idealises maternity. Despite knowledge that suicide is the leading cause of death in women during the perinatal period, guidelines remain heavily focused on physical health implications during this time.The author explored her own transitional experience of new motherhood, positioning the mother as a thinking, feeling subject within the mother–child dyad. In this, the author aimed to bring the complexity of the maternal experience to the forefront of knowledge, moving the mother from the margins to the centre of understanding. The author used a creative research approach, using process-led art practice to explore and more deeply understand her own lived experience. Moving fluidly between theory and practice, without privileging either form of exploration, enabled the researcher to create new meaning and see in different ways.There is a deep need to normalise the emotional and psychological shifts that accompany childbirth and mothering. Making art can create space to think about the reality of these experiences from a place of embodied understanding. The art object can be the container to hold the conflicting emotions that accompany new motherhood. The process of making art can deepen connection to the sensory bodily understanding of an experience, increasing emotional availability and relational capacity in the dyadic experience.Art psychotherapy could help mothers by facilitating communication focused on building connection and shared meaning. This could support more realistic and honest perceptions of the complexity of the mothering experience. The author suggests that, as art psychotherapists, it is through our own bodily experiences that we are then able to bear witness, and have deep therapeutic engagement, in the experience of another.