Madness and Loss of Motherhood

Roberta J. Apfel, M.D., M.P.H., is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, The Cambridge Hospital, and the former Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, MA. She is on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and in private practice in Newton, MA. Maryellen H. Handel, Ph.D., is Director of Psychiatric Ambulatory Services, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Newton, MA, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is in private practice in Newton, MA.

About the authors. Introduction to the clinical practice series. Foreword. Acknowledgments. Introduction. Sex and reproduction: ways of being normal for patients with long-term mental illness. Sex and reproduction in the care of patients with long-term mental illness. Talking with patients about sexuality. The female reproductive cycle and long-term mental illness. Gynecological care, birth control, and safe sex. Early pregnancy: diagnosis and decisions. High-risk pregnancy: management, labor, and delivery. Pregnancy and medications. Postpartum management of the mother with long-term mental illness: defining postpartum psychosis. Infanticide: a fantasy more than a fact for parents with long-term mental illness. Fathers with major mental illness: an ignored population. Long-term treatments for mother with long-term mental illness. Conclusions and recommendations. References. Index of case examples. Index.