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Reviewer needed: ‘Knowing Mothers: Researching Maternal Identity Change’ by Wendy Hollway

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By CentreForMedicalHumanities.org Research Team | Last verified: September 2026

Research Summary: Knowing Mothers: Researching Maternal Identity Change

Topic: Qualitative research study on maternal identity transformation in first-time mothers
Author: Wendy Hollway
Publisher & Year: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
Research Methodology: Psychoanalytically informed epistemology employing in-depth case examples across nineteen women's lived experiences
Study Population: Nineteen women experiencing first-time motherhood in East London
Primary Focus: Documentation and conceptualization of identity change during the transition to motherhood through empirical research
Evidence Grade: Qualitative empirical research informed by psychoanalytic theory
Call to Action: Medical humanities reviewers invited; submissions limited to 1,000 words maximum

We are pleased to offer for review ‘Knowing Mothers: Researching Maternal Identity Change‘ by Wendy Hollway (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Expressions of interest are welcome from across the medical humanities.

How do women experience the identity changes involved in becoming mothers for the first time? When this is the question of an empirical research project, it poses methodological challenges: how can research bring to light such experience, and how can identity change be documented, conceptualised and written about?

Nineteen women’s lives populate this book, as they become mothers for the first time, each unique and all having much in common amidst the diversity of East London. Through in depth case examples, Wendy Hollway demonstrates how a different research methodology, underpinned by a psychoanalytically informed epistemology, can transform our understanding of the early foundations of maternal identity.

If you would like to review ‘Knowing Mothers: Researching Maternal Identity Change‘ (no more than 1,000 words in length), then please consult our reviewer’s guidelines and email our reviews editor with a short explanation of why you are well placed to review the book.

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