This research aims to explore and evaluate the role of “imaginative work” in the application of the miracle question during Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) with new mothers navigating maternal identity transition (matrescence). Maternal psychology literature emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the challenges, tensions and losses involved in maternal identity transition. However, from a solution-focused perspective it is also important that new mothers are allowed a space to imagine and construct their ideal future motherhood selves that they are in the process of becoming. This project aims to explore how this process of imaginative work (imagining and co-constructing a shared new reality through language) is facilitated through the therapeutic dialogue that unfolds after the miracle question is asked. Methodologically it will apply a combined qualitative micro-analysis of SFBT sessions with retrospective post-therapy qualitative interviews with 6-8 new mothers navigating the challenges of matrescence. Ultimately the hope is that findings will contribute to the SFBT literature by illuminating the process of “imaginative work” and that these insights may be usefully applied to therapeutic interventions in maternal health and wellbeing.

Jacqueline Corcoran has been a clinical social worker for over 30 years. Her academic journey began at the University of Texas at Arlington (4 years), then Virginia Commonwealth University (17 years), and now the University of Pennsylvania (8 years). In that time, Dr. Corcoran has written 20 books that are used in schools of social work in the U.S. and internationally. She has also published over 100 journal articles and book chapters. She was the first person in social work to publish a book on evidence-based practice, Evidence-Based Social Work Practice with Families, which she wrote in 2000 as an assistant professor. Dr. Corcoran’s career has been devoted to the synthesis of clinical social work knowledge through systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and qualitative research synthesis. With Littell and Pillai, she published the first book in social work on systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Another area of clinical scholarship is strengths-based models, including solution-focused therapy, motivational interviewing, strengths-based assessment, and ways to make existing models more strengths-based. Dr. Corcoran is committed to continuing the compilation of knowledge to further the evidence base of social work with the mission of bringing relevant services to oppressed and vulnerable people. She was named in the Stanford University-Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists for 2021 - 2023 on the basis of career-long data.

Dr. Corcoran currently serves as the Faculty Director of the Doctorate in Clinical Social Work Program. In addition to being a clinical social worker and academic, she is an author of novels.