Prenatal anxiety, birth trauma, postnatal depression/PTSD or simply processing your transition to parenthood?
Whether this is your first or subsequent baby, it may be that having some breathing space to think about the changes in your life would be useful to you. Feeling better resourced through pregnancy, in the aftermath of your baby’s birth and the experience of becoming a parent, as well as in how you relate to others within your family group, can mean feeling increased confidence in your role as a new mother or father.
Alternatively, it is possible that you may be experiencing feelings of extreme emotional distress during this time. Perhaps you are feeling intensely anxious about labour (tokophobia) or giving birth? Or you are suffering nightmares and flashbacks as the result of a traumatic birth experience? Or you are concerned you may have symptoms of postnatal depression, or perhaps PTSD?
These feelings can be experienced by both mothers AND fathers.
Finding support through the counselling process is one option you may wish to consider. The opportunity to begin to work through some painful feelings with a trained therapist, can make all the difference to your longer term experience of being a parent and to your developing relationship with your baby.
You may find it useful to talk to a few counsellors first, until you find someone you feel comfortable to work with. I am happy to meet with you for an initial consultation on this basis, face to face or online (VSee). To contact me, see here.
My role as a psychodynamic therapist is to hear what you have to say and think together with you about some of the themes and feelings that you raise, but not to advise. I aim to support you in a way that feels useful to you, to discover your own solutions, in your own time. You are in control. And the service is confidential.
Read more … Birth Trauma – the psychodynamics of ruptured relationship
**I am registered with the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) to practice independently, I am not employed by the NHS.**
FURTHER READING/RESOURCES
- Birth Trauma Association
- Crossreach – PND support services in Edinburgh
- Birthing4Blokes
- When birth is trauma – Elizabeth Ford @ MidwifeThinking, 2011
- Birth Crisis – Sheila Kitzinger, 2006
- Sad Dad – Olivia Spencer, 2014
- A mother’s story of postnatal depression and how psychodynamic counselling has helped her piece her life back together here.
- Why Love Matters: how affection shapes a baby’s brain – Sue Gerhardt, 2004
- The Drama of Being a Child: the search for the true self – Alice Miller, 1987
Adela Stockton (COSCA Accred/MBACP), Counselling/Therapy, Clinical Supervision 