Maternal Mental Health
I provide relationship-based care and focus on you helping you to feel like you again.
In my work with moms, I often explore the themes of:
managing emotions (“mom rage”, anxiety and intrusive thoughts, crying spells, you name it- moms feel it.)
developing parental identity
developing and/or improving relationships
Motherhood and our identity as a mother is different for each of us. I am here to help you find your motherhood- whatever that may look like.
I work with moms of all kinds:
those experiencing fertility challenges, experiencing a traumatic or difficult pregnancy, healing from traumatic birth, mourning miscarriage(s) or infant loss, experiencing a postpartum mood disorder, and/or having difficulty adjusting postpartum.
I have specialized training for perinatal mental health as well as trauma and bereavement. Sometimes I involve EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) in our work. EMDR is a helpful therapy approach to work through trauma and past difficult experiences.
Specialized Training
EMDR Fundamentals: Reboot through the Perinatal Lens with Dr. Mara Tessler Stein, 18 hours (2022)
Birth Story Processing Training for Therapists with Emily Souder, LCSW-C, PMH-C, author of Birth Story Brave (2022)
The Advanced Practice of EMDR for Perinatal Mental Health with Dr. Mara Tessler Stein, 18 hour (2020)
Maternal Mental Health Professional Certificate Training by PSI and 2020 Mom Project (2019)
EMDR with Moms
So often our parenting, relationship with our children, and/or our birthing experiences introduce trauma or activate trauma and themes from earlier experiences in our life. EMDR is one therapy approach I use to facilate healing and moving through trauma.
Birth Story Processing
Who benefits from birth story processing?
All birthing people
Those who have experienced: vaginal birth, c-section birth, traumatic birth, non-traumatic birth, birth with interventions, non-medicated births, birth that went to plan, birth that didn’t go to plan, those with NICU stays
What is birth story processing?
a loosely structured approach to explore the many parts of your birthing process: gestation/pregnancy, the start of and progression of labor, birth itself, meeting your baby, and your post-birth experience.
Helps to re-story and create an epilogue- you get to decide how to tell the story in the future.
Takes the immense experience of birth and all it entails and allows you to process, make meaning, and find resolution and peace.
Goals of birth story processing
Process and organize memories of your birth
Integrate feelings, body sensations, and thoughts related to your birth experience
Uncomplicate thoughts and feelings surrounding pregnancy and birth for your own future experiences as well as when you relate with others experiencing pregnancy and nearing birth
Contact me for specialized counseling centering on your birth story or incorporate birth story processing into your larger therapeutic work.
“I appreciate the work we did processing through my birth with my first baby. I’m feeling really great moving into birth #2, and I’m truly excited to have a redeeming birth, whatever that ends up looking like! I know I would still be dwelling on my first birth if it weren’t for the work we did. I’ve sung your praises to others as well who are looking for birth trauma therapy. Thank you!”
Kristina’s Podcasts, Writing, and Resources on Motherhood:
Matrescence on the Aligned Birth Podcast
The process of becoming a mother, matresence. Much like the process of becoming a teenager and adolescence, there are chemical, physical, and emotional changes that occur as we become a mother. In this episode, Dr. Shannon chats with maternal mental health counselor Kristina Tucker about the change in our identity in motherhood, where society fails us, and what resources are out there for support. They also discuss:
● How to treat matresence from a holistic and empowering lens
● The things that change within is in motherhood
● Support vs fixing
● Self-compassion
● Find the gray area of motherhood (the both/and)
● Trauma - attachment - narrative work
Self Compassion and Fertility on the Woven Well Podcast
We can be hard on ourselves when it comes to our fertility journeys: "I should've done this. I ought to have known that. How could I have done that? I caused this." Kristina Tucker, GA LPC, shares the importance of self compassion when it comes to our bodies and fertility. We talk about what self compassion is, why it makes such a difference in our quality of life, what God has to say about it, and how to practice it - right now. This is a fantastic message that we think every woman benefits from hearing!
Kristina walks us through a real-time self compassion break. You can come back to utilize this at any time: it can be found at 14:00
Poems and pondering shared on Instagram and Substack:
“You Can Do It All” (Identity in motherhood)
Reflecting on Self-Compassion and Co-regulation in a moment of parenting