The Authentic Mother: Creative Art Engagement to Support the New Parent

by Kate King

Beginning at day-one, the adventure of parenthood is unlike any other. The Authentic Mother is a companion book for new parents and their loved ones that validates the complex experience of parenthood, shares new research about the ways parenthood re-wires the brain, and offers creative exercises to process and explore the multitude of feelings a new parent may experience. From working with postpartum healing to navigating your marriage and your in-laws, this book provides support, guidance, and validation for the authentic experience of early parenthood.

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 17, 2014

About the author

Kate King is an award-winning author, as well as a Licensed Professional Counselor, Board-Certified Art Therapist, and Radiant Life Coach. She is also a professional artist and three-time published author. Kate was also awarded the Best Counselor of Littleton award in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

In addition, Kate is the founder and owner of The Radiant Life Project, where her mission is to help individuals heal their inner wounds so that they can bring their highest selves into the collective. Kate is widely known for helping her clients and audience learn to cultivate radiant lives that shine so brightly they impact and improve the lives of those surrounding them. Kate’s work is filled with an expansive array of inspiring resources, tools, and practices that provide an accessible entry point into a life of greater authenticity, fulfillment, and illumination.

Through The Radiant Life Project, Kate seeks to engage and empower her audience with the skill base from her 15+ years as a licensed clinical psychotherapist and board-certified art therapist, as well as the wisdom she has acquired through her own healing growth journey in the school of life. Kate’s work incorporates the fusion of brain sciences, diverse psychotherapeutic modalities, spiritual practices, creative expression, and attuned connection to provide a unique and effective strategy not only for healing and growth, but for the true freedom that comes with authentic living. It is Kate’s utmost passion to teach others how to reclaim their truest Selves and intentionally create and sustain a life that absolutely radiates with joy, possibility, creativity, wholeness, and meaningful purpose.

Kate’s first book, “The Authentic Mother,” is a creatively-based companion book that offers support and healing tools for new mothers on their complex journey of welcoming a child into their lives. It acknowledges and attunes to the massive stretch that happens in early motherhood, and offers an invitation toward authenticity and compassion while accessing creative, therapeutic, and scientific resources for self-support.

Kate’s second book, “The Radiant Life Project,” is a comprehensive infusion of all things creative, therapeutic, scientific, and spiritual from Kate’s clinical and personal skill base that contribute to the cultivation of a life that satisfies, gratifies, and rings with the empowering truth of authentic radiance.

Kate's NEW book with Johns Hopkins University press, is "Mend or Move On: A Guide to Healing or Leaving Toxic Relationships." This is a therapeutic guide to navigating difficult friendships, family relationships, professional connections, and romantic partnerships. It helps readers to recognize, release, and recover from relationships that harm their mental and emotional health. This book is not about saving every connection—it's about knowing which relationships are worth healing, and which demand an honest goodbye. Readers are compassionately guided through the difficult process of deciding whether to stay or walk away with practical, psychology-informed tools that support both paths. 

Reviews

[Ellen Hagaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Doula and a doodler I like the idea of expressing emotions in pregnancy through art. More than that I enjoyed Kate King’s stories and helpful pregnancy descriptions.