In this episode Cath is joined by Anna Butcher. We talked about Anna's journey to motherhood, how she experiences mothering and how the act of becoming a mother is an intrusion into our lives (on multiple levels). There is some deeply personal storytelling illustrating the concepts being discussed and we focused on how control turns up for both Cath and Anna and the antidote to this.

Anna Butcher is a counselling psychologist specialising in perinatal psychology and the experience of motherhood. She came to the field of perinatal psychology after becoming a mother herself and becoming fascinated in the magnitude of the process which is often simplified and misunderstood. Anna is a lover of psychoanalytic theory and practice, for its richness in exploring early life experiences, relationships with caregivers and what it is to be a person.

She loves marrying these ideas with her new found enthusiasm for the journey into and process of becoming a mother. She is also an advocate for speaking about the darker sides/emotions of motherhood which psychoanalytic theory give voice to. Anna taught and trained psychologists for ten years and teaching remains a passion of hers.

Anna is trained in perinatal and infant mental health as well as newborn behavioural observation and Watch, Wait & Wonder, a parent-infant psychotherapy approach. She runs monthly support groups for mums in Amersham, Buckinghamshire and you can find her on Instagram @mums_and_microwaved_tea

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