Motherhood and Parenthood
Providing therapy for you and your partner as you navigate motherhood and parenthood
in Calgary and online in Alberta
Why didn’t anyone warn you about how hard motherhood and parenthood is, how much it rocks your world, and the way in which you don’t recognize yourself?
Being a mother and a parent shakes you in ways that you never imagined and triggers many things that you didn’t even know where there. The exhaustion of constantly being needed by these tiny and very dependent humans is a lot.
Holding the dichotomy about how you experience the beauty and absolute heartache and intensity of parenting feel gut wrenching. You might hold joy and grief, frustration and celebration, longing and hanging on, play and productivity, balance and chaos…what am I missing?
The term for the ongoing transformation of becoming a mother is Matrescence. It is the birth and growing pains that are a part of what it is to become a mother and mothering figure. Often this can feel like a lonely process that you lose and find yourself in.
What are some of the things that you may want to process with a therapist related to motherhood and parenthood?
Stuff still sticking around related to birth or postpartum.
The transition to motherhood/parenthood.
Issues relating to identity and who you are.
Rage, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, worry.
Triggers relating to how you were parented.
Feeling the need to escape.
Finding yourself or your relationship again.
Balance - is there balance?
Perfection that can have increased triggers in motherhood and parenting.
Lack of control.
Not feeling like a “good enough” mother or parent.
Difficulty taking care of yourself.
How to be a firm but kind mother and parent.
Addressing your past experience of being parented and changing how you can parent now in response.
Relationship struggles.
Loneliness in motherhood and parenthood.
Some of the Treatment Provided for Motherhood & Parenthood
Compassionate Holding
Being met in a therapy session with empathy and compassion can be the start of what you need to process motherhood or parenthood. Healing in relationship and feeling heard in a neutral and confidential space, allows you to be seen and heard and will help you to feel less alone. This can also be restorative for those parts of you that were not previously seen or supported by others you have been in relationship with. Offering you compassion and teaching you to offer compassion to yourself can have a powerful effect on things like shame, rage, guilt, anger, defensiveness, sadness, blame, exhaustion, and the other emotions that often become triggered when you are moving through motherhood or parenthood. All of you will be welcomed with a non-judgmental and supportive approach that can encourage growth and healing. Compassionate holding might be what you need to process what it is to be a mother and parent.
Grief Therapy
Grief therapy can be helpful as you move through motherhood and parenthood as so much grief can come up. When you transition to motherhood there is often a grieving of who you were before. Often you don’t realize how much change there is and how different life can be on the other side. We will allow space for grief in all of it’s forms within the therapy room. Processing the grief in motherhood could involve utilizing somatic techniques, sandtray therapy, creative outlets, and allow you to identify how you can best grieve what you need to grieve. Grief therapy can also involve some psychoeducation for you to know more about your own grief and explore how this has impacted your relationship with others. Despite what some may say or what you have heard, grief is not linear. We will leave space for the messiness of your grief and explore the right that you have to grieve in your own individual way. No matter how grief looks for you in motherhood or parenthood, it deserves the space to be acknowledged and processed.
Parts Work
This probably sounds weird, what is this? Well, parts work offers us a way to notice that we are made up of many different parts. These parts of us may be familiar and have been around for a while, or perhaps they are new and surprising and have shown up in motherhood and parenthood. They may be things like emotional parts, people pleaser parts, numbing parts, identity parts, and more. We can utilize therapies such as the Dissociative Table or Internal Family Systems Therapy to examine these parts and how they have protected you, controlled taken over, been dismissed, provided safety, created boundaries, and impacted who you are. When we examine our parts outside of ourselves, it allows things to become externalized that are often so internal to us. This can provide a wonderful healing container that might be what is needed to move you forward. Examining these parts and the way in which they can show up in motherhood or parenthood may be helpful in your healing journey.
EMDR Therapy
EMDR is an evidence based treatment that stands for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. It utilizes bilateral stimulation, which means it activates both sides of the brain in order to reprocess distressing memories. When we experience trauma or distress, our amygdala (the fight, flight, freeze response system) gets activated. Flashbacks and “sticky memories” are being triggered by this. In EMDR therapy we can address any trauma or distress that is now showing up in motherhood or parenthood. It works to soften the memories that are distressing without having to go into too much detail. That fight, flight, freeze response becomes deactivated in association with the memory and can provide relief from the distress and future triggers. We can utilize eye movements to do this, but there are other ways to create the bilateral stimulation such as hand held buzzers or auditory sounds. Check out the video at the bottom of the Perinatal Trauma page to learn more about EMDR therapy.
Somatic Therapy
Distress or trauma become stored in our brains and body. Somatic therapy is therapy relating to the body that works well to treat distress or trauma because it focuses on the body. In motherhood or parenthood our bodies can hold so much of what we are going through and can benefit from more than just “talk therapy”. This type of therapy might include mindfulness therapy that helps us to have increased non-judgmental awareness. It often will involve grounding. Grounding is something that we utilize to keep us in the present moment. Staying in the present moment can be important because dissociation is something that our brains and bodies like to do in order to protect us from distress in motherhood or parenthood. Dissociation has been the wise protector when we needed it. However, we want to start to allow our body to be more present and grounded again in order to start to process our distress or trauma. Somatic therapy can also involve body movements that allow for a release of the distress or trauma that our body is holding. Motherhood and parenthood can take their toll, so let’s look at how to holistically support you.
Attachment Theory
When we are a mother or parent we quickly realize that our own stuff can become triggered. Attachment theory involves how we related to our own attachment figures growing up and how we build that attachment relationship with our children now. It may be helpful to examine our own attachment style and how it can impact motherhood and parenthood. Attachment theory also applies to the relationship that we have with our own children. We can explore how you can support a secure attachment relationship with your own child. This can involve the ways in which you interact with them as well as exploring coping with behaviours and what discipline looks like in relation to this model. The great thing that we know about attachment is that we can always work to transform our own attachment style and make changes to our attachment relationship with our children. Knowing that you have not done permanent damage can be a relief. You can feel confident in the training and experience at Wild Path Counselling within this area of specialization. Know that small changes can be made support you or your child/children so that you can all have healthy and secure attachment. If you want more information on how I can can support you with parenting here.