I help anxious mums of little ones feel less consumed by worry.
Specialist therapy for anxiety in early motherhood
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Specialist therapy for anxiety in early motherhood ć°ļø
Psychological therapy for motherhood, anxiety and difficult experiences
Motherhood can bring worries you never had before ā or make old fears, experiences and vulnerabilities feel much closer to the surface.
You might be worrying constantly about your baby or child, struggling to trust that everything is okay, feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility of motherhood, or finding that a difficult experience during pregnancy, birth or your babyās early weeks is still affecting you.
Sometimes there is an obvious reason youāre struggling. Sometimes there isnāt.
I offer individual online psychological therapy for mothers who want to understand what is happening, feel less governed by anxiety and have more space to be present in their lives.
Maternal anxiety & overwhelm
You may have expected to worry more when you became a mum. But perhaps the
amount of worry has surprised you.
Your mind might constantly jump ahead to what could go wrong. You may second-guess decisions, compare yourself with other mums or feel an enormous responsibility to get everything right.
Even when things are going well, it can be difficult to properly relax.
Therapy can help you understand why anxiety has become so persistent, recognise the patterns that may be keeping it going and develop different ways of responding to worry and uncertainty.
The aim isnāt to eliminate normal worry. Itās to help it become less consuming.
After neonatal care
Having a baby who needs neonatal care can be an enormously difficult start to motherhood.
For a period of time, paying close attention to your babyās health, numbers, monitors, symptoms and changes may have been genuinely necessary.
Coming home doesnāt necessarily mean your mind immediately gets the message that the danger has passed.
You may continue to feel on alert, find it difficult to trust that your baby is okay, check frequently, worry about illness or development, or struggle with the absence of the monitoring and reassurance that surrounded you in hospital.
Therapy can provide space to understand what you have been through and how it may be affecting you now.
My work within NHS neonatal services is a newer area of my clinical practice and is further developing my understanding of the psychological impact that neonatal experiences can have on mothers and families.
When earlier experiences resurface in motherhood
Not everything that emerges after having a baby began with motherhood.
Becoming a parent can sometimes bring earlier experiences much closer to the surface.
You may notice old memories or emotions returning, feel unexpectedly affected by situations involving your child, or find that becoming responsible for someone else has changed the way you think about things that happened in your own past.
We can explore these experiences sensitively and consider whether they are contributing to how you feel now.
Where appropriate, EMDR may form part of this work.
Worry about your babyās health & safety
When youāre responsible for someone you love so much, itās natural to pay attention to their health and safety.
But sometimes that vigilance becomes exhausting.
You might find yourself:
ļ· -Frequently checking that your baby or child is okay
ļ· -Becoming very focused on symptoms or changes
ļ· -Searching online for reassurance or information
ļ· -Asking others repeatedly whether something is normal
ļ· -Imagining worst-case scenarios
ļ· -Feeling reassured briefly, only for another worry to appear
ļ· -Finding it difficult to trust your own judgement about when something does or doesnāt need attention
Therapy isnāt about encouraging you to ignore genuine concerns.
Instead, we can look at what happens when uncertainty appears, how you respond to it, and whether the things youāre doing to feel safer may actually be keeping you caught in a cycle of anxiety.
Difficult pregnancy or birth experiences
Sometimes anxiety makes more sense when we understand what came before it.
A pregnancy or birth may have been frightening, unpredictable or very different from what you had expected. You might find yourself replaying parts of what happened, becoming distressed by reminders, avoiding thinking or talking about it, or feeling that your body remains on alert long after the event itself has ended.
You may also question whether what happened was ābad enoughā to affect you.
There isnāt a particular type of birth you need to have experienced for it to have had an emotional impact.
Where appropriate, therapy can help you make sense of what happened and process experiences that continue to feel distressing in the present.
How Therapy Works
You donāt need to decide which therapy you need before contacting me.
Weāll begin by developing an understanding of what is happening for you ā what youāre struggling with now, what may have contributed to it and what seems to be keeping things difficult.
I draw primarily on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), EMDR and acceptance-based approaches. We may use one approach or draw from different approaches depending on what makes sense for you.
Therapy is individual rather than based on a set programme.
EMDR, CBT and acceptance-based therapy
50 minute sessions
Online across the UK
Free 15 minute consultation
CBT can help us understand patterns involving worry, thoughts, emotions and behaviours ā including checking, reassurance-seeking, overthinking and attempts to eliminate uncertainty.
EMDR may be helpful when current difficulties are connected to distressing experiences or memories that continue to feel emotionally present.
Acceptance-based approaches can help you respond differently to difficult thoughts and feelings, particularly when trying to control or get rid of anxiety has become exhausting.
