Trauma-Informed Parenting

The Perinatal Time Period: Before and after having a baby can be a whirlwind. So, how do you nourish yourself while nourishing others? How do you tend to that part of you that needs just as much attention as other loved ones in your family when growing your family?

Whether you are a parent-to-be (biological or adoptive), are experiencing baby loss, are trying to conceive or adopt, or are a parent with a colicky baby (plus toddler!), therapy can be a part of your support system.

From the anticipation of family planning and pregnancy and post-birth “baby blues,” to possible anxiety/depression, to physical recovery, and the list goes on—they all need support and tender care through psychotherapy, social support and sometimes other resources—and this applies to all parents or caregivers, biological or adoptive, regardless of sex or gender.

When M-Bodied Therapy references “Mother”, the “mothering quality of oxytocin” is the emphasized, which plays a major role in signaling safety within our Social Engagement system functioning as related to nervous system science. Therefore, those who identify as female, male, or non-binary may offer and embody that “Mother” quality.

Toddlers and teens leaving you a little lost or frustrated? Do you say go left, but they only want to go right? Is their favorite word NO, or are their chronic eye-rolls triggering your own backlash or retreat? Or, perhaps there are explosions everyday along with defiant behavior, constant opposition and a general lack of disconnection or even fear for their well-being.

When we become aware of the significance of attachment, nervous system responses and relational, body-based practices, we can more clearly see the importance of celebrating and honoring each unique individual that makes up the family system. We can also become more capable of celebrating and honoring the ruptures, friction and messiness that inevitably happen!

Understanding attachment as a practice and how co-regulation supports healthy brain and self development also helps families to learn and integrate body-based techniques that help them to consciously move-through-the-messy.

The mismatches, messiness, tantrums and ruptures that often arise from toddlerhood through the teenage years help children to differentiate and become their own unique selves over time. These messy relational challenges are also where the richness and potential for deeper connection, healing and individuation reside.

Families come in all shapes and sizes, and like individuals, have their own strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. Sometimes these show up as communication problems, chronic bickering, boundary issues, behavioral problems, eating disorders or substance abuse, school or learning challenges, job transitions, grief and loss, to name a few. Or, sometimes it might seem like there’s one person with the problem.

Inviting all members of the family into therapy can help shine light on areas that could use attention for the benefit of everyone, hence the saying many hands make light work. While all members are invited to be courageous, to invest in the therapeutic process, the process of reconnecting together offers deep emotional nourishment and practical take-home skills to use at home.

M-Bodied Therapy offers specific Chi for Two® relational practices designed to help rewire the deep nourishment involved in the early relational life—the important first tastes of connection: match and mismatch—with our primary caregivers. These body-based practices and symbolic redos help to shift nervous system functioning, and therein physiological and developmental functioning, to help reclaim deeper hungers, rebuild connection, and re-pattern healthy embodiment from the inside-out.

Parenthood has a special way of handing over that bundle of joy with no instructions (except for the dusty, barely-opened pile of parenting books on your nightstand) and then dimming the lights to your own hungers, hobbies and hopes.

You might feel stretched thin, guilty for this or that, like you don’t fit in with the other parents, or you wish you had more friends at this stage in life. Perhaps you’re wondering how not to let motherhood devour you but how to rediscover your deeper hungers and reconnect with your family. M-Bodied Therapy offers a way to bite into the richness of life, to healthily digest the ebb and flow of parenthood’s cycles, and to live in your body with satisfaction and energy. Psychotherapy may be the safe, soft place to land to feed yourself.

“I would rather be the child of a mother who has all the inner conflicts of the human being than be mothered by someone for whom all is easy and smooth, who knows all the answers, and is a stranger to doubt.” ~ Donald Woods Winnicott