Therapy for expectant parents, new parents, and parents who are struggling in any way with their parenting journey
The journey from deciding to become a parent right through to parenting children can be really tough. So many parts of this can bring mental health challenges, open up old wounds, and lead to someone needing to completely rediscover their identity- often multiple times.
I work with you from planning parenthood, through pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood. The shifts that your mind, body, lifestyle and relationships go through during these periods of time are huge and it is important to make sure that your therapist understands these complexities. These are what I am trained and experienced in working with.
As a mum of young children, I have always been incredibly frustrated by therapy advice and expectations that are often unrealistic for people with babies and young children. At the centre of my therapeutic style is empowering and honouring your parenting values and choices.
Need to bring your young baby to therapy? We can work with that.
Looking for a safe space to share your darkest and scariest thoughts about your children? I am here.
Struggling with crippling mum guilt, rage, or a lack of confidence? We can work on that together.
Had ill children and had no capacity to do the work between the sessions- let’s figure out how we can manage this.
Are you a midwife or health visitor, wanting to link in to help one of your parents manage the emotions and identity shift of their parenthood journey? Send me an email!
We often look at the general process of matrescence; those psychological, physical, neurological, identity and relationship changes that occur when entering parenthood. We may look at the journey you took into parenthood to process that, including trying to conceive, fertility issues and loss, pregnancy experiences and birth trauma.
I help you get to know what changes your mind and body have gone through and we look out for signs of things such as postnatal depression, perinatal OCD, anxiety, and a number of other mental health challenges. I am here to work through perfectionism, navigating a return to work, and rebuilding your identity.
I am not only experienced in working with normal parenting challenges and hormonal shifts, but I also work with navigating unmasking hidden neurodivergence in parents and in parenting children with additional needs. My own experience of these things and in parenting with chronic health conditions has allowed me to use my knowledge in addition to my training to help you to traverse these complexities. To do this, I often add compassion-focused and acceptance work to my cognitive behavioural therapy approach to working, because I have found this is often a really important piece to do together.
If you are pregnant, I can also offer a specific package of support to be part of your village in your journey into parenthood- I offer 3 sessions on the lead up to the birth to discuss any difficulties you are experiencing and to help you to liaise with your midwife and birthing team. I can then do check-in texts on the week of the baby’s arrival, followed by 3 sessions after this to check in and help you to navigate your first few weeks of being a parent.
If you have read this and found that any of it resonates but are unsure whether you are ‘bad enough’ for therapy, then why not reach out for a free consultation call and we can figure out what you need?
Follow me on Instagram @jess_the_therapy_mum to get tips and information on all things relating to this area. I also share personal snippets to show how I implement some of the things I talk about. You will also be able to see updates around my future baby and mum wellbeing groups, and the book I will be releasing for new mums to help them with the postpartum period.