Perinatal
Psychological
Therapies
Having a baby, whether it’s your first or fifth, fundamentally changes many aspects of life: your sense of identity, your body, your relationships, and your lifestyle. This transition to a new normal is filled with both wonderful and challenging moments. For many parents, these changes, combined with life stresses or distressing experiences, can make adjustment difficult. This struggle may manifest as anxiety, loss, sadness, irritability, guilt, worthlessness, or isolation. It can also affect the bond between parent and baby.
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The good news is that a range of highly effective therapies can help parents overcome these challenges.
Nurture the Borders offers a variety of evidence-based therapies, which you can access by making a referral for support.
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You may wish to think about accessing therapy…
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If you feel that your mental health is affecting your enjoyment of relationships, bonding with your baby, personality, or engagement in everyday activities and interests, seeking support can be beneficial. Speaking with a psychotherapist or counsellor in a safe, non-judgmental environment can help you develop a clearer understanding of your feelings and experiences, help you process difficult events and equip you with strategies to cope.
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At Nurture the Borders, we offer a range of therapeutic services designed to address these challenges. Our therapies are evidence-based and tailored to meet the unique needs of each parent. Many parents have found that our services have helped them make meaningful and positive changes in their lives. If you're struggling with difficult emotions, our professional and compassionate team is here to support you on your journey to better mental health and well-being.
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Talking therapies can be really helpful if you are struggling with your mental and emotional wellbeing. They involve talking to a trained professional about your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. We offer Counselling, Psychotherapy and CBT which are recommended in the National Institute of Clinical Excellence Guidelines as evidence based treatments for Perinatal Mental Health problems such as anxiety, depression, OCD and PTSD. All our therapists have additional training and specialise in Perinatal Mental Health.
Therapy aims to:
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give you a safe time and place to talk to someone who won't judge you
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help you make sense of things and understand yourself better
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help you resolve complicated feelings, or find ways to live with them
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help you recognise unhelpful patterns in the way you think or act, and find ways to change them (if you want to).
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teach you coping skills for dealing with different problems.
Have you experienced an event, multiple events or a period of time that has really negatively impacted your mental health?
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We provide therapy which is effective in helping you to recover if you have had a traumatic experience or multiple traumatic experiences during pregnancy, birth or the postnatal period.
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Traumatic events are unique to everyone but could come from:
birth, miscarriage/baby loss, IVF/fertility journey, breastfeeding/feeding, hyperemisis (pregnancy sickness), postnatal events, neonatal unit, colic/reflux baby and more.
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Our experienced trauma therapists who have specialist training in birth and perinatal trauma will gently work with you using the best evidenced based therapies for trauma to support you to recover from and process what has happened so you can move forward with your life.
Video Interactive Guidance (VIG) therapy is a really positive approach that uses video to help you understand and improve communication, building happy, healthy and trusting relationships. It can help you recognise your strengths, and discover new skills, by helping you do more of the things you are doing well. VIG is recommended by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence as an evidence based therapy to help with attachment. It can help by:
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It can help you better relate to your child
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It can support you to develop a stronger bond with your baby
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It can help build your confidence as a parent.
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It will highlight the strengths that you already have; you may not even be aware of them.
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It will help you to build on these strengths.
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When you see yourself communicating well it can be a very motivating experience.
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The VIG process will provide you with an understanding of communication that can be used in any interaction.
Creative journaling has many positive benefits for our mental health and well-being. It’s a valuable practice for anyone, not just writers and artists, and journaling can be a super power during times of big change in our lives, like becoming a mother and parent.
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Our calm creative journaling workshops are designed for parents experiencing emotional and mental health challenges and changes in pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. They provide creative, psychosocial and therapeutic tools and support alongside psycho-education to enhance mental and emotional well-being.
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The sessions provide parents with the opportunity to express their feelings creatively as well as reflect, share, document and understand their experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and mothering in a safe, non-judgemental space.
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We provide all art materials and journals as well as creche facilities for participants.
