Post-Natal Depression challenges the expectation that it is normal to be a 'happy mother'. It provides a radical critique of the traditional medical and social science explanations of 'post natal depression' by supplying a systematic feminist psychological analysis of women's experiences following childbirth. Paula Nicolson argues that, far from it being an abnormal, undesirable, pathological condition, it is a normal, healthy response to a series of losses.
Post Natal Depression makes an important contribution to the psychology of women and feminist research and will be of interst to psychologists, social scientists, nurses and doctors.

Paula Nicolson is Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology at the Sheffield School for Health and Related Research, Sheffield University. Her previous publications include Gender, Power and Organization (1996), Female Sexuality (1994; edited with Precilla Choi), and Gender Issues in Clinical Psychology (1992; edited with Jane Ussher).

Introduction 1 Women's experience of motherhood 2 Competing explanations of post-natal depression 3 The context of post-natal depression 4 Post-natal care and 'maternity blues' 5 Reflexivity, intervention and the construction of post-natal depression 6 Loss, happiness and post-natal depression: the ultimate paradox 7 Knowledge, myth and the meaning of post-natal depression