DISSERTATION RESEARCH
My dissertation is about and for women. It is also about and for families. The overall purpose of my study was to identify women's unique and common beliefs, choices, and experiences in order to further our understandings about mother-daughter relationships, as well as other intimate family relationships, family structure, interpersonal communication patterns, as well as rituals and rights of passage related to pregnancy, birth, and mothering. My research was guided by my insatiable curiosity about how people come to believe what they believe, know what they 'know,' and why they make the decisions that they make. My goal was to positively and powerfully influence the health and well-being of women and their families.
My initial research focus was where, how, and from/with whom women learned and talked to about pregnancy, birth, and mothering and the comingling influence of facts, values, ignorance, fear, and false beliefs on women as they envisioned and thus contructed their birth, mothering, and even their life experiences. In the end I argued for the potential of positive psychology and neuro-biological 're-programming' as a way of positively influencing both mother and child's intellectual, emotional, and physical development and well-being during the primal period and beyond.
Mine was a mixed-methods ethnobiographical study. By interviewing mothers and their daughters I was able to reflect the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of three generations of women in my research. As a result, I was able to discover and reflect upon historical changes over time in a unique way.
My dissertation is about and for women. It is also about and for families. The overall purpose of my study was to identify women's unique and common beliefs, choices, and experiences in order to further our understandings about mother-daughter relationships, as well as other intimate family relationships, family structure, interpersonal communication patterns, as well as rituals and rights of passage related to pregnancy, birth, and mothering. My research was guided by my insatiable curiosity about how people come to believe what they believe, know what they 'know,' and why they make the decisions that they make. My goal was to positively and powerfully influence the health and well-being of women and their families.
My initial research focus was where, how, and from/with whom women learned and talked to about pregnancy, birth, and mothering and the comingling influence of facts, values, ignorance, fear, and false beliefs on women as they envisioned and thus contructed their birth, mothering, and even their life experiences. In the end I argued for the potential of positive psychology and neuro-biological 're-programming' as a way of positively influencing both mother and child's intellectual, emotional, and physical development and well-being during the primal period and beyond.
Mine was a mixed-methods ethnobiographical study. By interviewing mothers and their daughters I was able to reflect the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of three generations of women in my research. As a result, I was able to discover and reflect upon historical changes over time in a unique way.
"Rather the multiplicity of what is apparently contained in them can only be experienced, understood and described. And their enmeshing in the course of history is a singlular even that is inexhaustible for human thought."
~ Wilhelm Dilthey (1852-1911)
Foundations of the Humanities (1968).
~ Wilhelm Dilthey (1852-1911)
Foundations of the Humanities (1968).
