Support on your journey into parenthood and beyond

Pregnancy and Postpartum

The perinatal period reorganizes everything at once: your body, your nervous system, your relationships, your identity, and your sense of control.

Many clients describe functioning externally while feeling internally unrecognizable to themselves. You are doing what needs to be done, socializing, working, managing, but you feel “off.”

Or you may feel caught in constant self-monitoring, trying to do everything “right,” diligently following advice, adjusting, optimizing, and still questioning whether you are doing it correctly or missing something important.

Or you may have thoughts you “shouldn’t” have, or notice the absence of feelings you expected. You may find yourself holding multiple, often contradictory emotions at once: loving your baby and feeling overwhelmed, feeling bonded and also trapped or depleted, feeling grateful while grieving parts of your old life.

For many people, this phase also collides with long-held expectations about what pregnancy or early motherhood would feel like. None of these, on their own, are signs that something is wrong. They are what it looks like when identity, physiology, and responsibility all shift at once.

How therapy helps

My work is to help you understand what is actually happening in this phase, separate what is yours from what has been imposed or assumed, and identify what can be shifted versus what needs to be met differently.

In sessions, we work actively and collaboratively. We look at what is stuck and why, whether that is anxiety spiraling, nervous system overwhelm, relationship strain, identity disruption, or the collapse of strategies that used to work.

I draw on EMDR for trauma processing, CBT for unhelpful thought patterns, DBT skills for emotional regulation, and psychoeducation to make sense of what is happening and reduce shame.

Over time, the goal is not just symptom relief. It is increased clarity, reduced self-blame, and recognition that your capacity and constraints have genuinely shifted, so you can stop measuring yourself against your pre-pregnancy self and respond to what is actually true now.

What I work with

In pregnancy and the postpartum period, many clients find themselves feeling internally off in a way that’s hard to name.

Anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or low mood can feel unfamiliar or harder to control. There is often a shift in identity, in your relationship, and in how you feel in your body, alongside the physical demands of pregnancy or recovery, disrupted sleep, and the realities of caring for a new baby.

For some, birth itself continues to linger as something that hasn’t fully settled. And often, there is a quiet but persistent sense that you should be handling this better than you are.

This period can also bring earlier experiences into focus, including your own childhood. Fertility history may resurface during pregnancy. Birth experiences can shape recovery. Long-standing relational patterns often become more visible under the strain of this transition.

How we can work together

I offer individual therapy, couples work, and in-home sessions for newly postpartum families in San Francisco and parts of Marin.

This period is too demanding and unpredictable for a fixed format. Therapy is flexible and responsive to your circumstances: in-person, virtual, or in your home.  I also offer generous cancellation policies for postpartum families.

In the early weeks, when leaving the house feels impossible, I can come to you. When movement helps you think more clearly, we can walk in the Presidio or Golden Gate Park. As your capacity changes, the structure of therapy changes with it.