مرحبا طفلي..وداعا أفكاري المتطفلة

by Jenny Yip, مريم علاء (ترجمة)

وداعا للقلق والوسواس القهري والأفكار المقلقة مع هذا الدليل الرحيم للأمهات الجدد..الأمومة هي واحدة من أصعب الوظائف وأكثرها تطلباً، وقد تؤدي إلى الإرهاق الجسدي والتعب الذهني والغضب العاطفي. الأمهات الجدد غالباً ما يواجهن قلقاً لا ينتهي ودوامة من الأفكار المتطفلة التي تعطل فترة الترابط مع الطفل. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، قد يعانين من حالات الصحة العقلية مثل اكتئاب ما بعد الولادة أو القلق أو اضطراب الوسواس القهري (OCD)
كتاب “مرحبًا طفلي، وداعًا للأفكاري المتطفلة” يقدم استراتيجيات سلوكية معرفية (CBT) واستراتيجيات التعرض ومنع الاستجابة (ERP) لمساعدة الأمهات على التعامل مع القلق والأفكار المتطفلة، حتى تتمكني من قضاء وقت أقل ”في رأسك“ ووقت أطول في التواصل مع طفلك.

Genres: Parenting

250 pages, Paperback

Published January 25, 2025

Reviews

[Irono Yami]

DNF at 25% - while the book started very interesting, it got repetitive quite quickly as well.
what i liked about "hello baby, goodbye intrusive thoughts" are the helpful examples and even Jenny Yip's own experiences. however, i agree with the other reviews that "there is just too much text to wade through".

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars, rounded up.

This self-help guide for moms is about coping with intrusive thoughts and OCD, but I felt that the author was less interested in talking about OCD than she was in outlining her plan for overall "maternal wellness" and creating more equitable divisions of household labor. She skimps on the unique, hard-to-find OCD content to cover concepts that are done to death elsewhere, and even though I agree that feeling less overwhelmed with household work and other commitments will help your mental health, people don't buy books about OCD for this kind of life management advice.

Also, I wish that this book wasn't just for mothers. The author briefly acknowledges that some dads also deal with intrusive thoughts, but she doesn't include anything for them, and so much of the book has to do with the social and emotional aspects of motherhood and mom pressures that I wouldn't recommend this book to a suffering father. It bothered me that the author spent so much time talking about unrelated life management topics without throwing a line to dads by including a single case study or chapter about fathers with intrusive thoughts.

Despite my frustrations with this book, the author shares many helpful insights about OCD and intrusive thoughts, and she gives evidence-based advice for how to fight OCD through CBT principles and exposure therapy. She also includes example stories from her own parenting journey and from composite examples of other moms. I like that she gave examples from women in different situations, including a woman who is dealing with intrusive thoughts and anxiety about family planning, a woman who is fearful about adding a second child to her family, and a single mom. The author also writes about the impact of former pregnancy loss on maternal mental health.

However, although she provides a range of different examples, the author almost exclusively writes about palatable and less disturbing expressions of OCD. Although she acknowledges that OCD can involve intrusive thoughts about harm, she focuses on fears like, "What if I'm a bad mom?" and "What if I didn't sanitize this bottle enough?" Even when she gives examples about moms feeling fearful of injury and death, this almost always has to do with worrying about potential accidents. There's only a few references to fears that you'll physically harm or sexually assault your child, and the author only ever mentions these concepts in passing, one-sentence examples, without actually addressing the incredibly heavy topic of having irrational, fearful thoughts about something so terrible.

Still, don't get me wrong. Milder intrusive thoughts can be terrible as well. "What if I'm a bad mom?" could just be a random worry during a discouraged moment, but if someone is thinking this all the time, and it feels like a wildfire in her brain, and she is spending lots of time trying to put out that fire by reassuring herself through visible or mental compulsions, then that's OCD. Still, even though this can be a genuinely awful intrusive thought for some mothers, the thought in and of itself is quite mild. It bothered me that the author spent so much time writing about it, while ignoring inherently traumatizing and stigmatized expressions of OCD.

Her reassurances would also carry a lot more weight if she engaged with worse OCD themes. She tells readers that their fears and irrational thoughts don't make them bad mothers, and that they're only worrying about these things because they love their child and want their child to be healthy and protected. However, because she doesn't detail what it's like to deal with intrusive thoughts about harming your child, and just writes about the stuff that's easier and more palatable to think about, someone dealing with worse thoughts could find that this book just makes them feel worse.

The author almost entirely sidesteps worse OCD problems, and she primarily gives examples of normal worries that might or might not get magnified to an OCD level. It really bothered me that she didn't engage with OCD-specific fears. This book can be very helpful for some moms dealing with postpartum OCD, but that's only if their intrusive thoughts are merely upsetting, and aren't inherently taboo.

I would not recommend this to someone whose intrusive thoughts revolve around fears of harming their child. If someone is terrified that they'll commit a heinous crime, even though they don't want to do that thing, find the thoughts abhorrent, and would never act on them, the author's reassurances will fall INCREDIBLY flat, because she thinks you're just worried about accidents or not living up to society's standards for moms. I would recommend The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts by Lee Baer to this audience instead.

I received a temporary digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Emily Erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hello Baby, Goodbye Intrusive Thoughts takes a broad approach to dealing with intrusive thoughts. It focuses not only on coping with the thoughts themselves but the bigger picture of emotional well-being, including values, boundaries, identity, invisible labor, and more.

I loved the narratives from women (including the author) at different points in their early parenthood journey, which add some meat to the sometimes murky concept of intrusive thoughts. (Basically, intrusive thoughts are incredibly common, and you’ve almost certainly had them – a hugely normalizing thing to hear from a licensed psychologist!)

If you’re a new mom and are starting to think your intrusive thoughts may be problematic, this book offers background about how (and why) anxiety and OCD happen (and are perpetuated). You’ll also get some basic ideas about interrupting yours and turning the emotional temperature down.

While there were a couple of charts and call-out boxes, given that potential readers are likely to be sleep-deprived and in some degree of distress, I wished the book was a bit more skimmable (shorter paragraphs, bulleted lists, etc.) and made it crystal clear what steps you should take if you’re overwhelmed with intrusive thoughts. The values worksheet near the end was great, but I didn’t see a handout like that for an OCD-related intervention in my copy, and it would have been a great addition.

Recommended for readers interested in maternal mental health and well-being, self-help, and anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Thank you to Surge Public Relations for the advance review copy.

[trop_de_livres · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book a positive review, because the subject is so important. In this self-help book, Jenny Yip, an OCD therapist, focuses on OCD in motherhood. Using 4 patients in different stages of motherhood, she exemplifies how OCD can manifest itself and how to treat it using different strategies, based on proven behavioral therapy. I am not an expert, so my opinions are from a layperson.

There are several problems with this book. There is a lot of useful information, but it is presented in an unnecessarily complicated manner. It is too wordy for new mothers, especially those who are in the midst of OCD. I can understand Yip’s enthusiasm in wanting to share all kinds of information about the background of OCD, societal expectations, etc, but if you are a sleep-deprived mother who is struggling every day, there is just too much text to wade through. There needs to be a simplified behavioral plan to follow, step by step, with worksheets. Charts and other graphics should be used instead of describing processes whenever possible. At times, this reads like a textbook for a therapist, instead of for a patient.

Also, it is a shame that adoption is not mentioned at all. This book is definitely not for anyone who has become a mother but not given physical birth to a child. If someone else gave birth to your child, especially if this is due to infertility, this book is not for you.

Thank you NetGalley and New Harbinger for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a necessary book! There are all kinds of books out there for moms with postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety, but almost none of them zero in on the very specific (and horrifying) experience of anxiety and depression fueled by postpartum OCD (and also during pregnancy). A lot of women don’t realize that intrusive violent/intrusive sexual thoughts in the postpartum period are caused by OCD—and in a way, that’s what makes the disorder SO SCARY and traumatizing, not to mention the fact that many OBGYN offices are not very informed about the condition. With OCD, knowledge on how it works and why it’s happening is extremely empowering, and this book is a Rosetta Stone for beginning to understand what’s going on and provides a pathway to healing and relearning how to be yourself again . Thank you Jenny Yip for writing this! I’m going to be buying it for so many of my mom friends at even the mere mention of intrusive thoughts, whether or not they have OCD!

[MarryAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book.

I'll start with what I liked:
-the information about OCD and how it can affect you when you start the whole motherhood journey is very usefull
-there are stories that show possible scenarios as well as personal examples, and I feel that helps with understanding the concepts
-the book is not only talking about the issues, but also gives solutions and explains what you can do to improve the situation

What I didn't like:
-mostly the format, there is a lot of text and it can be tiring, especially when you are a new mom and don't have the time or energy to search for the information you need
-sometimes the explanations where overly-complicated
-the book is quite repetitive

Disclaimer: I received a free e-book copy in exchange for my honest opinion

[Haley Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks NetGalley for the e-arc! As a mother who had intrusive thoughts herself this has plenty of ideas and steps to take to help. Any mother, expecting or with baby already earth side, should check this out.