"Let-Downs, Leaky Containers, and Elder Healing.” The NICU Experience from a Grandmother’s Perspective and Grandmotherly Transference in Therapy and Infant Observation

Authors

• Karen E. Dare, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, AustraliaFollow
• Anna M. Jones, Lawyer, Daughter, and Mother, Perth, Western Australia, AustraliaFollow

Abstract

This article examines my experience of grandmotherhood and my daughter Anna’s autoethnography of her first moments of becoming a mother. Here, I reflect on the birth of my three grandchildren (for whom I use pseudonyms) in a recorded conversation with Anna. I am an emotional container for her which I contrast with the leaky container of the hospital as her babies required neonatal intensive care, and Anna was sent home without them. Our identities shift in relation to one another at her first son Rowan’s birth in a motherhood constellation. I propose that therapeutic positive autoethnography (THE PosAE) can support women as they navigate new life transitions through self-reflective exercises such as this one, or telling their stories and hearing other women’s stories, including their therapists experience of their client’s stories. I also explore the role of the observer in infant observation and the therapist as a benevolent grandmother figure who uses grandmaternal transference to create therapeutic possibilities embedded in intergenerational relationships. I conclude that grandmother’s matter, elders can transmit knowledge and healing to younger generations and therapists can integrate therapeutic positive autoethnography (THE PosAE) within clinical practice.

Keywords

motherhood constellation, container, positive autoethnography, infant observation, perinatal infant mental health

Author Bio(s)

Karen Dare is an academic at Edith Cowan University teaching into the Master of Counselling and Psychotherapy. She qualified in perinatal and infant mental health at the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry.  She is a perinatal and infant mental health practitioner and couple and family therapist, trained at the William Street Family Therapy Clinic. She practices at the Elizabeth Clinic in Perth Western Australia. She is an accredited Clinical, Mental Health Social Worker and supervisor. She is a mother and grandmother. Please direct correspondence to [email protected]

Anna Jones is a Senior Associate Lawyer specializing in Bankruptcy and Administration in Perth, Western Australia and she is the mother of three delightful children. Please direct correspondence to [email protected]

Acknowledgements

Editor Kristy Arnold.

Publication Date

11-10-2026

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended APA Citation

Dare, D. E., & Jones, A. M. (2026). “Let-downs, leaky containers, and elder healing.” The NICU experience from a grandmother’s perspective and grandmotherly transference in therapy and infant observation. The Qualitative Report, 31(11), 7142-7162.

ORCID ID

ORCID ID:https;//orcid.org/0000-0001-5367-455x