Monique Bydlowski is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and honorary director of research at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). She was the first French scientist to study the unconscious dimension of pregnancy, and to alert the medical
world to the need for psychological treatment for some pregnant women. A privileged witness of the first PMAs [medically assisted procreation] at the Antoine-Béclère hospital (Clamart), she has devoted her entire career to the psychic exploration of fertility and motherhood.
What goes on in the head of a pregnant woman? How can we interpret the violence that accompanies every human birth? In what ways do our parents weigh on our own plans for parenthood?
How can we explain the post-natal blues or depression? What do we know today about the psychic causes of infertility? How can we understand pregnancy denial or infanticide? How does one mourn a child yet to be born?
Monique Bydlowski, a great pioneer in France of a psychic approach to motherhood, answers all these questions, and many more, with finesse and precision, based on her very great experience with the pregnant women she has treated, or with those she has worked with in therapy.