How do women experience the identity changes involved in becoming mothers for the first time? Throughout in depth case examples, Wendy Hollway demonstrates how a different research methodology, underpinned by a psychoanalytically informed epistemology, can transform our understanding of the early foundations of maternal identity.

PART I: A PSYCHO-SOCIAL RESEARCH PROJECT EXAMPLE: INTRODUCING PRINCIPLES, METHODS AND PRACTICES 1. Introduction: Knowing Mothers, Researching Becoming 2. Empirical Psycho-social Research: Design and Psychoanalytically Informed Principles 3. The Reality of Being a Young Girl: Agency, Imagination and Objectivity PART II: THREE PSYCHO-SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES ON KNOWING AND BECOMING: PSYCHOANALYTICALLY INFORMED THEORISING IN MOTHERS' AND RESEARCHERS' KNOWING 4. Weird Beyond Words: The Transgressive Corporeality of Pregnancy and Com-passion Based Ethics 5. Psychoanalytically Informed Data Analysis 6. Scenic Writing and Scenic Understanding PART III: ANALYSING THE POLITICS OF THE MATERNAL PSYCHO-SOCIALLY 7. 'I'm Not the Mother Type': Gender Identity Upheaval 8. Theorising Maternal Becoming Psycho-socially Conclusion 9. Unfinished Business

Wendy Hollway is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at The Open University, UK. She has written extensively on empirical psycho-social methods using psychoanalytically informed interviewing and observation, as well as on mothering, care and subjectivity. The project on which this book is based was funded by the British Economic and Social Research Council, part of the Identities and Social Action programme.