| Duration | 9th May, 6th June, 20th June, 4th July, 18th July |
|---|---|
| Course Type | In person |
| Suitability | Suitable for any modality of psychotherapist or counsellor |
From pre-conception to post-birth, disturbance within the parenting journey is far too common and can have devastating effects on the mother, infant and entire family. The effects can be transgenerational in nature and often there is a passing down of perinatal mental illness. This course integrates knowledge about developmental trauma and maternal/perinatal difficulties, as a way to treat the mother for her benefit, but also for the benefit of her infant.
The training is relational in approach and offers a thorough grounding in perinatal mental illness and how it may lead to developmental trauma, how to work with it, the most common presentations, some of the common ethical dilemmas, working with neurodivergence and complex presentations (TFMR, postpartum psychosis, late miscarriage, loss in infancy, birth trauma). We will explore a multitude of themes including parental bonding, attachment and affect regulation and how fundamental these are in perinatal work. We will also cover working with fathers/partners and couples (including heterosexual, single sex and non-binary couples).
The course programme is as follows:
What are we working with?
Perinatal mental illness – pathology, normality or systemic failure?
The common presentations, confounders, and disturbances in the parenting journey.
Complex presentations:
fertility complications, donor, surrogacy, TFMR,
psychosis, severe mental illness or trauma
How to effectively plan treatment
Attachment, bonding and affect regulation
Working with the infant in the room
Couples work
The importance of Black, Asian and ethnic minority experiences of childbirth and parenting
in the UK, Europe and worldwide
Facts, figures, and a debunking of myths
Let’s get our creative spirits out and explore different creative methods
to help to unlock the silence, shame, and guilt
all of which are inherent in perinatal mental illness
How does neurodivergence impact mothering and motherhood?
What about gender identity & parenthood?
Helping to support parents with disability (parent and/or infant), medical disorders,
high dependency infants, or those with terminal illness
Finally, let’s explore some of the more complex and charged ethical dilemmas that can
occur within the transitional journey to becoming a parent