Embodied Healing for Perinatal Mental Health

Embodied Counselling & Trauma Therapy

Reasons women seek support:

  • perinatal loss (early pregnancy loss, miscarriage, termination of pregnancy for medical reasons, stillbirth, neonatal death)

  • fertility difficulties

  • reproductive trauma

  • birth trauma

  • unexpected birth outcomes (incl. prematurity & NICU admission)

  • adoption (recent or past)

  • pregnancy after previous loss

  • preparing for birth & parenthood

  • adjustment to parenting/motherhood

  • perinatal emotional & mental wellbeing (pre & postnatal)

  • complex & early childhood trauma

  • transitions of peri/menopause

  • grief & loss

  • emotional issues relating to women's health conditions

  • stress arising from adjustments & transitions

  • building greater emotional regulation & resilience

  • creating more connection with themselves, their body & others

If embarking into the perinatal period, this life stage is one of great physiological, psychological and hormonal change with resulting identity reformation. For some it comes with unexpected loss and trauma. It also may bring to light childhood experiences and previous trauma which impacts this significant life transition, influencing your emerging role as a parent.

Through all these times we may seek out support from family and friends or manage these issues on our own. However, there are times when support and strategies from a professional can be of great help. I offer a compassionate and safe space for you to be seen, heard and to heal.

Working from an understanding that our mind and bodies are interconnected, consideration of the influence of hormonal change, nervous system regulation and women's health related conditions on a woman's mental and emotional wellbeing are fundamental in my approach.

I provide counselling which integrates evidence based therapies including the somatic modalities of TCTSY and Somatic Experiencing® and body based mindfulness techniques, with traditional talk therapies drawing on contemporary grief, attachment and trauma theories, which can support empowered choices towards embodied healing.

My approach supports you to untangle your traumatic experiences from the beliefs, thoughts and emotions that have become enmeshed with your body's survival responses. In understanding your attachment patterns which formed in early childhood alongside your emotional regulation capacity, I offer opportunities to renegotiate these patterns finding a greater sense of safety in your body, emotional regulation and reconnection to yourself and others.

Pregnancy

Sessions are offered face to face on the Gold Coast and Northern NSW or Online.

“QUOTE…….”

-….- Embodied Counselling client

Adjustment, emotional Distress & Mood & Motherhood

Sessions are offered face to face on the Gold Coast and Northern NSW or Online.

Embodied Healing for Birth Trauma

The experience of birth whilst empowering for some women, for others can be extremely distressing and traumatic, significantly impacting their adjustment to motherhood. Some births leave physical injuries, whilst some leave psychological trauma, whilst others a combination of both.

The conflict you may feel between the desired expectation of your birth and your reality, the sense of a loss of control of your body or the triggering of past trauma may all contribute to experiences of shock and severe distress. This can have ongoing psychological and physiological impact for you.

A woman’s birth does not have to be considered medically traumatic or life threatening to be experienced as traumatic. Definition trauma….

Trauma is very subjective and can in impact on your physical recovery, the emerging relationship with your baby or difficulties in adjusting to motherhood. It may significantly influence your mental health and decisions of future pregnancies and experiences of birth.

From an understanding of how your experience and story continues to live in your body, I integrate a somatic approach with an understanding of the adjustment that occurs in becoming a mother and the impact trauma has on this transition and your mental and physical wellbeing and identity as a mother.

I work with you from a foundation of attachment theory, perinatal mental health, compassion focussed practices, and a IPT??

recognition of how trauma responses reside in the body even long after the traumatic experience has past, to not only release what is stuck from your overwhelming and traumatic experience but also to restore what was missing.

Fostering a warm and safe space of compassion, I offer an embodied healing approach in my counselling, supporting women to feel heard, inviting reconnection of mind and body and rebuilding safety within their body. 

Sessions are offered face to face on the Gold Coast and Northern NSW or Online.