Maternal and Infant Mental Health
Pregnancy and the care of the newborns often opens up profound emotional vulnerability. While it may be easy share the joy and hopes of pregnancy and motherhood, it can be much harder to talk about the dark and difficult feelings that often come unbidden.
While these can be tremendously helpful to better understand your baby, they can also bring back strong unconscious memories of your own infancy with the natural feelings of overwhelm, helplessness and tremendous need. In the face trying to understand and meet your baby’s needs, a vicious cycle can ensue that leaves you feeling overwhelmed, like a bad mother, and terribly alone.
What’s most helpful in this time of distress is feeling held and supported while you find your strength and capabilities. You can count on me to receive you as you are, in all your worries and dread, confident that your distress cannot only be sorted out, but become a watershed for positive change.
In fact, the porosity of this sensitive time can be an amazing window into your own development and unquestioned beliefs about the way the world works. By carefully and thoughtfully exploring the pain that comes up as you get to know your newborn, we can safely explore and question what’s true, and what’s not, to give you a more secure beginning for your entry into motherhood and your baby’s foundation for ongoing development.