The New Motherhood Workbook

Learn how to develop compassion for yourself and your family Having a baby can be a time of joy, but also one of anxiety and challenge. Although the period of time through pregnancy and infancy is relatively short, mothers have a sense of its importance and often work hard both mentally and physically to get it 'right'. This fascinating and practical self-help book will guide mothers-to-be and new mothers through the maze of parenting advice and confusing feelings that can arise. It explains how a brain state called 'the compassionate mind' has developed through evolution to be a particularly powerful way of helping us to get through the challenges of life with confidence, strength and steadiness. Using this workbook you will learn: - Powerful techniques for creating a sense of support, safeness and joy for you, your baby and your family in which you can all best flourish. - How to understand and attune to the mind of your child to create a secure attachment. - How to create the basis for a compassionate mind in your child so that they can navigate the challenges of life and make positive and healthy relationships. Filled with interactive exercises and practical skills, The New Motherhood Workbook will be a source of support through the perinatal period. THE COMPASSIONATE MIND APPROACH The self-help books in this series are based on Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT, developed by series editor Paul Gilbert). This brings together an understanding of how our mind can cause us difficulties but also provides us with a powerful solution in the shape of mindfulness and compassion. It teaches ways to stimulate the part of the brain connected with kindness, warmth, compassion and safeness, and to calm the part that makes us feel, anxious, angry, sad or depressed. Michelle Cree is a clinical psychologist who worked for seventeen years in the Derbyshire Perinatal Mental Health Service where she pioneered the use of both individual and compassion focused therapy for the perinatal population. She became a national and international trainer and supervisor in CFT and is author of The Compassionate Mind Approach to Postnatal Depression. This became the first perinatal mental health book to be selected for the Reading Well programme.