
This, we believe, may be another way of rendering the subjective experience of pregnancy invisible, as it is an instruction that women are supposed to comply with.

But as these authors also note, ‘today pregnancy is a disciplinary ‘body project’ which women are instructed to covet and enjoy’ (p. As Tyler and Baraitser ( 2013) note, ‘the 1960s marked the rise of foetal celebrity, and the 1990s witnessed the breaking of a taboo on the visibility of the pregnant body’ (p. Our aim is to make visible the invisible work of the pregnant woman’s mind. In this paper, we share some initial findings from PhD research on the psychic processes of pregnancy. We will try to hold the tension between these perspectives while taking a journey through the creation of meaning during pregnancy. The point of intersection is the point at which the mind (conceived psychoanalytically as the place of psychic life, where unconscious and conscious modes of thought intersect and interact 2) constantly transforms and is transformed by the world. In fact, these two quotations underline the same idea they differ only on the perspective that they take. 1 Apparently pointing in the opposite direction, Baraitser’s comment highlights the impact of the world on one’s internal space, particularly the world of others.

Husserl’s quotation above points to the subjective foundation of the world, to the way it exists only when personal, internal meaning brings it to life. ‘ how disruption by the other shifts our internal psychic structures, not only during childhood, but also throughout our lives, and therefore how it accounts for the emergence of the new, the unexpected, the surprising or the generative.’ ‘I cannot move into any world, whether by living, experiencing, thinking, valuing or acting, except as it obtains its being and validity in me and from me myself.’
