On becoming a mother
pp. 102-114
in: Waltervon Baeyer, Richard M. Griffith (eds), Conditio humana, Berlin, Springer, 1966Abstract
From young women experiencing their first pregnancy one learns that "Mutter-werden", to become a mother, is not easy. The German name for the pregnant state "in Hoffnung" (in hope) expresses only one aspect of a complex period, which includes in reality also fear and a new orientation towards oneself and the world. The awareness of a transformation is unavoidable — the change of her body, a different image of herself as a person and a new style of life take no denial. What Erwin Straus l wrote about pain is most relevant for the manifold sensations of the primigravida: "To sense pain means therefore to sense oneself at the same time, to find oneself changed in relation to the world, or more exactly, changed in one's somatic communication with the world."