La Sala / Fagandini / Iori Coming into the World

A Dialogue between Medical and Human Sciences. International Congress "The 'normal' complexities of coming into the world", Modena Italy 28-30 September 2006
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-3-11-021511-3
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 379 Seiten, Gewicht: 10 g

Prominent scientists from perinatal medicine, paediatrics, psychology and sociology will meet in Modena, Italy to explore birth as a complex psychological experience for mother, father and child. The proceedings of this interdisciplinary congress are here published in English to reach the broadest possible scientific audience. The goal is to create a dialogue between humanistic and medical perspectives with regard to conception, pregnancy and birth in an era of rapid biotechnological progress, taking different social and cultural contexts into account.

Zielgruppe

Wissenschaftler aus den Gebieten der Perinatalmedizin, Psychologi / Scientists from the fields of perinatal medicine, psychology, soc

Autoren/Hrsg.

La Sala, Giovanni Battista

Fagandini, Piergiuseppina

Iori, Vanna

Monti, Fiorella

Blickstein, Isaac

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Klinische und Innere Medizin Gynäkologie, Geburtshilfe
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Klinische und Innere Medizin Pädiatrie, Neonatologie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Gesundheitssoziologie, Medizinsoziologie
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Medizinische Soziologie & Psychologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

I. Blickstein: Modern reproductive medicine and the definition of parenthood: Praeter Naturam; E. Z. Tronick: Self and dyadic expansion of consciousness, meaning-making, open systems and the experience of pleasure; V. Iori: Birth: between medical and human science; V. Gallese: Intentional attunement: mirror neurons, inter-subjectivity, and autism; V. Francis: Becoming a parent: what parental writings teach us; G. Ferrara Mori: The interior experience of maternity; Adriana Lis et al.: Transition to fatherhood; B. Alder: The psychosomatic approach to contraceptive choice; J. Boivin: Counselling for infertility and its treatment; P. Fagandini et al.: The maternal and paternal experience between sterility and procreation; M. Mancia: The integrative functions of the brain and the origins of fetal psychism: some theoretical and clinical reflections; F. Ansermet: Death and birth; J. Bitzer: Prenatal counselling; F. Ferrari et al.: 'Care' in neonatal intensive therapy; R. Negri: Neurological development assessment of the newborn; V. Valoriani et al.: Subjective perspectives on the maternity experience - a qualitative analysis; G. Music: Reciprocity and psychic growth: the neglect of neglect; L. Miller: Psychic growth and reciprocity: psychoanalytical infant observation and socio-cultural factors; F. Monti: The complexity of birth: the Cesarean section; P. Durning: From foster care to parent training - the emergence of a socio-educative approach to 'parentality'; T. Ferradji: Migration, a risk for identity?; A.M. Di Vita: Scenarios of pregnancy and birth in immigrant families; B. Tillard: Family preparations for birth; G. Bestetti/ A.Regalia: Physiological pain, pathological pain, iatrogenic pain: the quality of pain and women's experience; F. Facchinetti et al.: Low risk delivery today

Leseproben

(S. 103-104)

Adriana Lis, Department of Psychology of Development and Socialisation,University of Padua, Italy
Alessandro Gennaro, Department of Pedagogical and Didactic Psychological Sciences, University of Lecce, Italy
Claudia Mazzeschi, Department of Human and Educational Sciences, University of Perugia, Italy

Within the life cycle, becoming a parent represents a fundamental step involving important changes in the psycho-sociological life of a couple (Zeanah et al., 1990, Abelin, 1971, Bimbi, Castellano, 1990). It also represents a ‘marker event’ (Levinson, 1987) which has significant repercussions on the development of adult personality. The birth of a child should be considered within a precise ‘context’ (understood here as both a socio-psychological network – including the mental relationship, work, social support, and psychological support for the partner – and the socio-cultural context in which the father’s role and function are envisaged).

Furthermore, even though parenthood is a step which is taken at a particular time, it is nonetheless part of a long process of growth. For this reason many scholars emphasize the significance of this event in terms of ‘developmental crisis’ or even ‘developmental phase’. On the one hand, many scholars underline the growth and the personal development of both parents, on the other, they tend to emphasize how the choice of having a child interacts with various psychodynamic dimensions which refer to: the history of the couple, the family and its intergenerational relations, a revision of the way individuals have experienced maternity and paternity during childhood, the gender differences implied by motherhood and fatherhood respectively, and, in general, the configuration of new identities, which appear to be connected to the sense of the self and to the separation from, and the confrontation with, one’s own parent figures (Erikson, 1964, Fonagy, Target, 2001).

As far as the parents are concerned, the need to allow space for a third person, who has the right to occupy a precise place and has a precise role, means developing a complex process which, on a behavioral level, requires reorganizing the couple’s schedules and physical spaces and, on a mental level, involves preparing to welcome the baby, by creating an adequate psychological space. In so doing, parents work towards constituting an efficient and well balanced triad, thus avoiding exclusions and the formation of coalitions. In this sense, the function of parents appears simultaneously extremely complex and very delicate.

The choice of having a child, which implies important psychological processes in relation to the individual, the couple, and the very notion of generativity – understood here as the ability to take care of what parents have given birth to together, that is to take care of the other’s difference (Mahler et al., 1975, Scabini, Cigoli, 2000) – requires a redefinition of masculine and feminine identity. The birth of a child therefore also implies a change in the way parents relate to each other.

On the one hand there is the weakening of ‘companionship’, that is the pleasure that ‘doing things together’ can give, on the other, however, there is the intensification of the ‘partnership’, that is the sense of belonging and supporting each other. Since the 1980s, researchers and psychologists investigating the function of parents have shifted their attention from a study of the development of maternity to an analysis of the father’s function, its development and its influences on the child’s development, thus bringing to the fore the importance of this figure which had been neglected for a long time.

Über Autor(innen)

Giovanni B. La Sala, Arcispedale S. Maria Nuova, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Piergiuseppina Fagandini, Arcispedale S. Maria Nuova, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Vanna Iori, Catholic University of Milan, Italy; Fiorella Monti, Bologna University, Italy; Isaac Blickstein, Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot, Israel.