This self-access class considers the motivation for parenthood as well as the developmental challenges facing couples through pregnancy, birth and beyond. The range of emotions and challenges facing these couples as they prepare for parenthood will be examined. The impact of children on the couple relationship will provide an additional focus for this seminar.
Given the changing nature of intimate family relationships in the context of wider society, attention is given to the ways in which couples as parents negotiate their way through the transition. Through this expanded lens the importance of more diverse representations of family life (contrasting these with traditional notions of family constellations with an emphasis on the heterosexual conjugal unit, rooted in marriage and co-residence) are considered. This also incorporates a critique concerning the idealisation of motherhood and its impact on the couple in the context of parenthood.
*This session is a recording from a live training and the class discussions have been taken out of the recording.
About the Trainer
Dr Damian McCann, D.Sys.Psych., is a psychoanalytic couple psychotherapist working at Tavistock Relationships, London, an adjunct faculty member of the International Psychotherapy Institute (IPI), Washington, DC, an associate of Queen Anne Street Practice, London, and an editorial board member of Couple & Family Psychoanalysis.
He is also a consultant systemic psychotherapist with many years of experience working with children, adolescents, and their families. He has a particular interest in working with gender and sexual diversity in psychoanalytic practice and has published and taught widely on this topic.
His doctoral research was concerned with understanding the meaning and impact of violence in the couple relationships of gay men, and he is involved in developing approaches to working with couples more generally in which there is violence and abuse. His edited book ‘Same-Sex Couples and Other Identities: Psychoanalytic Perspectives’ was published by Routledge in 2021, and he is the co-editor of Couples as Parents: Explorations in Couple Psychotherapy, to be published this year by Routledge.
