Therapies was held in Belgrade, Serbia between 4-7 September 2024.
During the congress, we held a panel, including a presentation and discussion titled: “Accompanying women in the transition to motherhood”. We feel very happy and encouraged in our work with the participation and contribution from our interntional colleagues.
We reached a strong consensus that there is a need for women’s mental health studies in the field of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies to be more involved in both academic research and clinical practice. Cognitive Behavioural Therapies which are accessible and easy to apply offer very important opportunities and facilities to support and improve women’s mental health. The contributions of our colleagues, which consisted of all international women mental health professionals working in the field added value and realisation to our conclusion.J
In our panel, we underline that in today’s changing world there is a need of change for the familiar stereotypes of motherhood. We discussed that in today’s modern world, where women are productive individuals who have to delegate, balance and manage many roles along with motherhood, there is a strong need for an approach that focuses supporting women in their motherhood experience. This approach aims to place the mental and social needs of women in the center as an individual, instead of the role of motherhood. Thus, it emphasizes the necessity of a perspective that makes women’s mental needs and difficulties visible while offering mental support and guidance.
In our presentation, we embodied the idea of providing psychological support and guidance to women in their transition to motherhood, with the fruitful, flexible and effective opportunities of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies, with a “Draft Psychoeducation Program” proposal. Evaluating on this proposal with our international colleagues while sharing opinions and holding discussions was extremely productive. Our session ended with enthusiasm and excitement with the motto “Together we are strong”. We would like to thank all colleagues for the supportive, guiding and scientific light they shed on our path.
Our presentation included the following topics:
- The transition from “womanhood” to “motherhood” refers to the major role transformation in a woman’s life. Although childbearing is a universal and natural experience, the postpartum period is an entirely new, multidimensional, complex experience for a woman that must be understood from a biopsychosociocultural perspective.
- The experience of becoming a mother is a process that creates many mental and emotional expectations and burdens for women. However, the common view about motherhood and its expectations and attitudes, which assume that women are naturally mentally and physically equipped and ready for motherhood, can lead to a psychological burden and distress on women.
- This mental burden and distress affects the woman’s mental well-being and quality of life in the process that begins with the experience of motherhood. It can lead to negative effects on career, education and social roles, and losses in productivity and self-realization. Moreover, it can be predisposing for the development of psychopathologies such as postpartum anxiety and depression.
- The changing reality of today’s modern world creates a need for a new model in the field of mental health that makes women’s needs and difficulties visible and supports them, with a perspective that places women at the center, not the role of motherhood, in the process of women’s transition to motherhood.
- This model should include a systematic procedures/protocols that guide the woman to internalize motherhood as an element of her holistic identity as an individual and provide woman by the psychotherapeutic tools for psychological distress and needs identified on the basis of scientific evidence, within a perspective that focuses on self-realization and ensuring self-sufficiency.
- Thus, Cognitive Behavioral Therapies, which are one of the most effective psychotherapy methods for depression and anxiety during the perinatal period, can contribute to the strengthening of women’s mental health by using the tools of CBT as a preventive mental health care intervention, before these psychopathologies develop.