Talk about your thesis! What was it about?
Thank you kindly for taking an interest! My blog has been dead for years, I must say I'm surprised I still get anon asks :)
My thesis (not sure if it's the right word in English? in this case, it's the research project one has to pursue to get one's master's degree) was in clinical psychology.
My theoretical frame of reference was psychoanalytic in nature, but doubly so, as I tried to use both Freudian and Jungian perspectives and have them not only coexist but also answer each other, for some extra fun. That means it's theoretically quite dense, especially for the profane. I'll try to make it more accessible here.
I applied those psychoanalytic theoretical models to perinatal psychology, in which I've specialised. The subject matter was differences in psychological functioning right after having given birth, when one is a first-time mother vs not so. A number of very specific and seemingly abnormal phenomena take place in women's psyche surrounding pregnancy and childbirth - which are actually not abnormal at all when put in that context. Still, that mental upheaval is quite something, lots of stuff from early childhood can come back up, and women are more vulnerable. It can actually help bring about a lot of change in their general mental health, and doing psychotherapy in that time period can be very beneficial and effective. So I was basically trying to map out various unconscious dynamics in mothers and how they differ between it having been their first pregnancy or not.
I found that after just becoming a mother for the first time, the unconscious mind is quite busy trying to deal with the new layout of transitioning from daughter to mother, and that there is little availability for relationships, and sense of identity is quite hard to maintain. For second or third time mothers, that upheaval is less massive, they've already gone though those changes the first time around, but they now deal with even older stuff as well as figuring out the ins and out of sibling rivalry. Outside of those very specific topics, their sense of self is stronger than first time mothers, and they have more psychic energy to invest in relationships.
On the more Jungian side of things, I've found that pregnancy appears to be potentially quite initiative and transformative for the feminine psyche, and that symbols emerging from the unconscious at that time can have a significant impact in furthering one's knowledge of oneself, and could be useful in therapy around that time.
I think that about covers my almost 200 pages long dissertation in layman's terms, and I sure hope I managed to make it understandable!
I'll just copy and paste the abstract I had to write in English, to give my answer that extra scientific and pompous flair, but feel free not to read any further lol:
"The aim of this study is to analyse the differences in psychological functioning between primiparous and multiparous parturients in the immediate aftermath of childbirth. To this end, qualitative methodology was employed through the projective TAT test, which was administered to six primiparous and multiparous parturients, following a semi-directive pre-interview. Formal analysis of their TAT narratives revealed a greater emergence of the primary process in the primiparous women, who regressed to a paranoid position in the face of representations of oedipal triangulation and the maternal imago. Their identity and object markers are confused, unlike those of multiparous mothers, who nevertheless regress more easily into the archaic. Dream analysis should enable us to preferentially investigate their collective unconscious."
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love to be called toxic! Love to be compared to chemicals. I’m everyone’s poison!
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the only way to fight against obsessional thoughts is to create more badass obsessional thoughts! 8D
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I can't be completely in the dark or light
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Probably why some asshole continues to hang around in your dreams: can only mean you have to fucking kill them
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