Abstract
As soon as she becomes aware of her pregnancy, the therapist is confronted with a barrage of issues involving her identity, integration of roles, maternal identification, and redenfinition of important relationships, including those with her patients. While she works at becoming aware of and responding to the dramatic emotional and biological changes of pregnancy, and emerges with corresponding maturational adjustments, her patients enter an often stormy period of therapy in which they respond to the changes in the therapist's appearance, the “threat” of the growing infant, and the reality of the therapist's needs and inevitable absence for maternity leave. The special event of the pregnancy alters the therapeutic setting and affects both the transference and coun-tertransference, initiating reverberations in the therapeutic relationship which provide opportunities for marked advances in therapy.
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Rosenthal, E.S. The therapist's pregnancy: Impact on the treatment process. Clin Soc Work J 18, 213–226 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00755097
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00755097