Abstract
This research brings the mother from the margins to the centre of the maternal
paradigm. The author explores her own transitional experience of new
motherhood, positioning the mother as a creative, reflexive container within the
mother–child dyad. The study shows that maternal subjectivity is not an
optional supplement to existing theory, but a necessary ground for any
meaningful understanding of the co-created relationship between mother and
child.
Methodologically, the thesis contributes a distinct heuristic arts-based approach,
which uses process‑led art practice to make implicit knowledge available to
research in the maternal field. A practice-led method, which overlaps with both
the written and spoken word, generates deeper, multidirectional understanding.
Fragmentation, repetition and non-linearity—so often treated as obstacles in
traditional research—have here become method, mirroring the disrupted
temporality of time in new motherhood.
The author argues that the complex and often contradictory feelings that come
with new motherhood are impossible to comprehend until they become a lived
experience. This gap between fantasy and reality is precisely where many women
experience profound disorientation, shame, and isolation, especially within
cultures that idealise ‘intensive mothering’ and demand self-sacrifice without
acknowledging cost. The author argues that this gap is not a personal failing, but
an inevitable and fertile site of psychic labour that must be acknowledged and
interrogated.
What emerges is a more realistic, compassionate account of early motherhood:
one that recognises the mother as a separate subject with desire, aggression,
eroticism, terror and creativity, rather than a neutral backdrop for the
developing child. Ultimately, the central claim of this thesis is simple and...