Kelly M. Weikle

Postpartum Depression and the Communicative Construction of Maternal Identity

In this book, Kelly M. Weikle contends that foregrounding lived experiences and applying identity as a lens to the study of postpartum depression provides a uniquely powerful perspective through which we can better understand both the condition and how to effectively support mothers during the postpartum period. Using the Communication Theory of Identity as a sensitizing framework, Weikle incorporates interviews with women who have experienced postpartum depression and autoethnographic insights from her own experience to demonstrate how expectations from others, close personal relationships, and dominant ideologies of "good" and "bad" motherhood can coalesce with mental health to shape each mother's postpartum experience on an individual level. While these tensions and challenges are not strictly medical and are thus more easily overlooked, they can manifest through devastating health crises including extreme anxiety and obsessions, intrusive thoughts of escape, bouts of insomnia, and intense feelings of overwhelm and maternal failure. Ultimately, Weikle's analysis contributes to scholarship across fields and disciplines through its investigation into how and why loss of control and loss of self can manifest-and the significance of those manifestations-in the postpartum context. This work thus sets a foundation and an impetus for researchers and practitioners to take these factors into consideration as they work to develop more impactful support for postpartum mothers.