Consciousness, healing and personal growth: how ‘therapeutic mothering’ impacts on raising children for Argentinean natural mothers

Abstract

This paper focuses on how therapeutic culture is used to reshape the experiences of motherhood. Through childbirth supportive groups, raising children counseling and doula´s emotional support among others activities, women learn to build their experiences as mothers in the key ofin terms of personal growth, self-development and spiritual healing. Here, I examine the meaning of these notions while I point outand the creation of new normative ideals that link an experience of personal growth with the experience of motherhood. The article is part of an ongoing qualitative study on in which I analyze, from a sociological perspective, the experience of mothers who practice “attachment parenting” and “respectful parenting” in Buenos Aires. This style of parenting involves “full-term breastfeeding”, co-sleeping, baby-led weaning, baby wearing, among the main practices. This paper Through this reflection I hope to contributes to understanding the growing prominence of therapeutic discourses in everyday life.