My Specialties include working with lovely humans navigating:

  • Fertility Challenges

  • Pregnancy Loss

  • High Risk/Complicated Pregnancies

  • Birth Trauma

  • NICU admissions

  • Perinatal (pregnancy/postpartum) mood and anxiety disorders aka PMADs (see bottom section!)

  • Motherhood identity challenges

  • Parenting in general, but also when you or your child have chronic medical conditions

  • Intergenerational Trauma - wanting to stop the cycle with you and not pass the epigenetic changes to your children

Trauma work where you don’t have to share every detail of what happened to you and is evidence-based to resolve in 1-3 sessions.

I utilize a variety of approaches in therapy, but when it comes to specific trauma work, Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART for short) is my specialized modality of choice. Whether it be childhood trauma, birth trauma, PTSD or even grief, ART uses bilateral stimulation via Eye Movements to replace negative sensations and images causing the distress symptoms so that you retain the facts of what occurred but without the distress moving forward. If you are curious to learn more about Accelerated Resolution Therapy, click here for more.

PMADs, Postpartum, Perinatal, Pregnancy, Parenting….am I just trying to play with alliteration?

The alliteration is actually happenstance, but the terms can be confusing. So here is how it all relates. Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs), technically, are an umbrella term to encompass maternal mental health conditions during pregnancy and up to the first 12 months postpartum (after delivery).  Parents of every culture, age, income level, and race can develop perinatal mental health disorders (definitions, on these symptoms and more fantastic resources, through PSI and San Diego’s local PHA). 

The most commonly referred to condition was postpartum depression, however we now know that the many conditions can include anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and psychosis.  PMADs were also thought to affect only birthing mothers. However, we know that not all gestational carriers identify as a mother, and that it can affect the non-birthing partner too.  PMADs can also affect surrogates, mothers who did not carry or birth the child, and adoptive parents. 

My lens is even a bit wider, where I view PMADS as mental health symptoms that a human being can experience during the time period of trying to conceive, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, infant loss, and the first few years postpartum (i.e. parenting challenges).

Navigating mental health symptoms during any of the perinatal period can feel exhausting, challenging, guilt ridden and full of judgment (self-imposed and from others). But with the right support, you can unpack that and allow yourself the opportunity to reconnect with different parts of yourself and lean into new meaning making and figuring out your shifting roles/identities.