For Women Only, Book 1: Healing Childbirth PTSD and Postpartum Depression with Parts Psychology (Volume 1)

“For Women Only, Book 1” is the first in a series of books devoted to exploring women’s issues in psychotherapy and counseling. This first book describes the treatment in just six sessions of one woman’s struggle with childbirth so painful it produced PTSD. Eight months of postpartum depression followed the birth before she found effective psychotherapy treatment. Other volumes will address emotionally and physically painful experiences with the menstrual/ovulation cycle, the trauma of miscarriages and stillbirths, and the effect on women of their partners’ porn addictions. Book 1 describes the treatment of postpartum depression and childbirth PTSD with Parts Psychology, a therapy that emphasizes work with the hidden parts (self-states, ego states, subpersonalities) of the whole person. These are the parts we refer to when we say “A part of me wants to leave him but another part cannot imagine life without him.” For Catherine, the 34-year-old mother who is the subject of the therapy, the two most important parts were Catherine 22, a younger part who filled the role of an angry Catherine, and Medusa, a snakes-as-hair version of Catherine’s mother. Therapy included both reducing the anger of Catherine 22 and neutralizing the effects of the Medusa “introject,” an unconscious representative of many negative traits of the patient’s mother. Catherine’s emotional issues were compounded by her mother’s rejection of her at the beginning of her pregnancy. Once her best friend, her mother became a continuing thorn in her side by refusing to speak to her throughout her pregnancy. The narrative describes how the mother’s negative influence in Catherine’s life was diminished through therapy. Positive results were confirmed through testing of Catherine’s pre- and post-treatment symptoms. The narrative of Catherine’s therapy illustrates how the Parts Psychology model provides an effective blueprint for bringing rapid relief and healing of a woman’s childbirth and postpartum issues. The second half of the book contains the excerpt of Chapter 1 of the author’s book, “Parts Psychology: A Trauma-Based, Self-State Therapy for Emotional Healing.”