EMDR for Birth Trauma & Perinatal Mental Health in Berkeley
Support through pregnancy, postpartum, loss, and the becoming of motherhood.
Maybe getting pregnant has been a long, uncertain road. Maybe you’re grieving a loss that the people around you don’t quite know how to acknowledge.
New babies are celebrated, and yet the experience of birth can be traumatic, and take months to recover to feel you yourself- who is she now?
Or perhaps nothing looks wrong from the outside, but you don’t feel like yourself. You love your child, and you miss your freedom. You feel grateful, and angry. You’re needed constantly, yet somehow feel alone.
All of this can have a place here.
When an experience still feels close
Sometimes we can understand what happened and still feel it in our bodies.
You might notice yourself bracing before a medical appointment, feeling overwhelmed by reminders of the birth, or struggling to feel comfortable with touch and intimacy. Earlier experiences may resurface during pregnancy or motherhood in ways you hadn’t expected.
You don’t have to decide whether what happened was “bad enough” before reaching out. We can begin with what you’re experiencing now.
I support women navigating:
Difficult or traumatic birth experiences
Anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum
Fertility challenges and pregnancy loss
Earlier trauma resurfacing during the transition to parenthood
Changes in identity, relationships, desire, and connection to the body
How we might work together
EMDR is an approach to working with distressing memories and the feelings and beliefs connected to them. We may use eye movements, tapping, or other forms of bilateral stimulation as part of that work.
But we don’t begin by asking you to push through the hardest parts of your story.
We begin by getting to know you: what feels difficult, what helps you feel supported, and what you want to be different. My approach brings together EMDR, somatic therapy, and a warm, collaborative relationship. There is room to slow down, ask questions, and decide together what feels right.
More than a set of symptoms
Before becoming a therapist, I supported women through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum as a doula. Those experiences continue to shape how I listen.
Motherhood can touch every part of a person’s life—their body, sexuality, relationships, work, sense of freedom, and understanding of who they are.
And your distress doesn’t exist outside the world you’re living in. The invisible labor, unequal expectations, and lack of support surrounding motherhood matter. We can talk about those things, too.
My work in women’s mental health, alongside teaching human sexuality, also makes room for the parts that can be harder to say aloud: resentment, changes in desire, feeling touched out, or wanting something that belongs only to you.
Let’s connect
I offer in-person therapy in Berkeley and online therapy throughout California.
You don’t need a clear explanation of what’s wrong before we talk. A free consultation is a chance to share a little about what you’re carrying and see whether working together feels like a good fit.