The post-natal mind

The post-natal mind

What can we learn from those who have battled addiction, anxiety and everything in between? This episode of All In The Mind focuses on writer Nicola Redhouse, whose experience of relentless postnatal anxiety after both her children were born pushed her to question everything she thought she knew about the mind. Nicola grew up in a family steeped in psychoanalytic thinking; her father is a psychotherapist grounded in Freud.

Yet when she was hit with what she calls "overwhelming anxiety" and "panic" from the moment her first baby was born, the theories she’d trusted no longer felt enough. She describes a constant bodily terror — "that level of panic that you would feel bodily... when you realise you've dropped something precious" — all while feeling deep love and attachment to her baby.

Host Lynne Malcolm talks with Nicola about how she first tried to make sense of her distress through psychoanalysis, examining lifelong themes of separation and family history. When the anxiety returned after her second child, she turned to psychiatry and medication, finding relief and much-needed language like "postnatal depression" to frame her experience.

Challenged by her sister’s claim that psychoanalysis is "pseudoscience", Nicola then became fascinated by neuropsychoanalysis — a field, led by figures such as Professor Mark Solms, that tries to bring neuroscience and psychoanalysis together under the idea that "there is only one mind".

The conversation widens with developmental psychologist Dr Pilyoung Kim, who explains how a mother’s brain structurally changes after birth, how stressors like poverty can blunt these adaptations, and why this period is both a time of growth and heightened vulnerability. Nicola finishes by stressing that there’s no single right approach: medication, talking therapy and social support can all play crucial roles. If postnatal anxiety has touched your life, what mix of support might offer you the most relief and understanding?