173: Holding Both: When Therapists Who Are Affected Are Supporting Others

04/06/20 • 43 min

One challenge that every therapist faces is helping clients through a difficulty that hits very close to home. For instance, when you’ve experienced a personal perinatal mental health challenge, then it can be triggering to provide support for others. Today’s guest has found a way to handle those difficult moments and turn her experience into commitment and advocacy for others.

Bridget Cross is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, certified perinatal mental health professional, and mom to two daughters. She lives in Savannah, Georgia, and works in private practice providing individual, family, and group therapy to new, hopeful, and expectant moms. Bridget is also a volunteer coordinator for the Georgia chapter of Postpartum Support International, and she’s a member of the Maternal Mental Health Collective of Savannah. Bridget’s passion is supporting women in all phases of life, but especially as they encounter and cope with the transition to motherhood. Bridget discusses what it’s like to work as a therapist with pregnant and postpartum moms when going through infertility, and what it’s like working with a perinatal population when going through her pregnancy and postpartum period., Therapists are human, and they have to deal with their own challenges while helping their clients.

Show Highlights:

Bridget’s three-year journey with IUI and IVF to have her first daughter, now 5
The crippling anxiety, anger, intrusive thoughts, and panic that set in quickly and intensely at her daughter’s birth
Why Bridget felt that she “should be stronger than this”
How Bridget found herself in deep, dark depression when her daughter was one month old
How Bridget withdrew from everyone in her life and “hid out”
The external stressors of work, moving to a new city, and career pressure
How Bridget went back to work and became involved with PSI
The moment of relief and recognition for Bridget that brought clarity on her next steps as a therapist
How Bridget covered up and justified her feelings when people tried to help her
The assumption that mental health professionals will know to ask for help if they need it
How hard it is to admit to others that you need help, especially as a mental health professional
When Bridget’s daughter was two, she got pregnant again with IVF, which resulted in an easy pregnancy and wonderful birth
Why Bridget expected postpartum depression with her second daughter’s birth and felt better prepared; she started early medications, therapy, and returned to work in a few weeks
Bridget’s commitment to becoming an advocate for pregnant and postpartum women, knowing this was part of her personal healing journey
The difficult parts of seeing pregnant and postpartum clients even though some stories are triggering and painful
How to handle the tendency to get angry about her own story and clients’ stories
How to hold space for the anger, hopelessness, and helplessness in this community
Why Bridget believes her path has made her a better therapist
Bridget’s message to other therapists: “Try to prioritize taking care of yourself and your feelings. Check your boundaries and notice presenting issues that are just too much to handle. Know when you need to step away. Listen to yourself and get connected to the perinatal mental health community.”

Resources:

Bridget Cross LCSW

Facebook: Bridget Cross LCSW

Listen To Moms

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Show Highlights:

Bridget’s three-year journey with IUI and IVF to have her first daughter, now 5
The crippling anxiety, anger, intrusive thoughts, and panic that set in quickly and intensely at her daughter’s birth
Why Bridget felt that she “should be stronger than this”
How Bridget found herself in deep, dark depression when her daughter was one month old
How Bridget withdrew from everyone in her life and “hid out”
The external stressors of work, moving to a new city, and career pressure
How Bridget went back to work and became involved with PSI
The moment of relief and recognition for Bridget that brought clarity on her next steps as a therapist
How Bridget covered up and justified her feelings when people tried to help her
The assumption that mental health professionals will know to ask for help if they need it
How hard it is to admit to others that you need help, especially as a mental health professional
When Bridget’s daughter was two, she got pregnant again with IVF, which resulted in an easy pregnancy and wonderful birth
Why Bridget expected postpartum depression with her second daughter’s birth and felt better prepared; she started early medications, therapy, and returned to work in a few weeks
Bridget’s commitment to becoming an advocate for pregnant and postpartum women, knowing this was part of her personal healing journey
The difficult parts of seeing pregnant and postpartum clients even though some stories are triggering and painful
How to handle the tendency to get angry about her own story and clients’ stories
How to hold space for the anger, hopelessness, and helplessness in this community
Why Bridget believes her path has made her a better therapist
Bridget’s message to other therapists: “Try to prioritize taking care of yourself and your feelings. Check your boundaries and notice presenting issues that are just too much to handle. Know when you need to step away. Listen to yourself and get connected to the perinatal mental health community.”

Resources:

Bridget Cross LCSW

Facebook: Bridget Cross LCSW

Listen To Moms

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Previous Episode

172: Sex, Stress, and Burnout. Understanding it All with Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.

The focus of our chat is on sex, but it’s also about relationships and stress and how our brains work. Our guest Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. shares her brilliant wisdom with us in this episode. Given the current state of the world, we are living in times of unprecedented stress, which absolutely affects how we relate to each other. I’m excited for you to hear this episode and learn more about your brain, sex and stress, especially postpartum. (FYI, sex related body parts, sex related words are used in our chat).

Emily Nagoski is a sex educator and the author of Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex LIfe and Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Her job is to travel all over the world, training therapists, medical professionals, college students, and the general public about the science of women’s sexual wellbeing.

Show Highlights:

The dual control model of how your brain perceives and processes sex
Why you might feel judgment about your sexual response, which “hits the brakes”--not the accelerator
Why the magical six-week timeline doesn’t work for most women
How your brain responds to the physical changes that come with giving birth
The best perspective on the six-week timeline
Steps to take in the chaos:
Identify what is causing you to hit the brakes
Have non-sexual sharing and touching
Why Emily doesn’t use the term “libido”
Why sexual desire differential is the #1 reason people seek sex therapy
The secrets of sexuality in long-term relationships
Why desire does NOT come first
Why you need to identify the sex you want---and don’t want
Why “pleasure is the measure” of your sexual wellbeing
Why Emily reads her own audiobook versions
Creating the ultimate sex-positive context through kindness and compassion
The difference in confidence and joy

Resources:

Emily Nagoski

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski

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Next Episode

174: Perinatal Mental Health en Español - Salud Mental Materna

Emilia Ortega-Jara, LCSW is a psychotherapist, Founder and Clinical Director of Corazon Counseling Service Inc., a holistic culturally-rooted community-based counseling center that focuses on all things Preconception, Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum! Emilia has over 20 years’ experience working in the mental health field and has been a longtime advocate for culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health services in the Latinx community. She has worked with various social justice organizations and community based mental health agencies throughout California. After the birth of her son, Emilia took special interest in developing her clinical expertise in the treatment of perinatal mood and anxiety distress among Chicana/Indigenous and Latinx communities. She is Certified as a Perinatal Mental Health Specialist through Postpartum Support International and is trained in EMDR, she uses EMDR techniques in the treatment of Perinatal Loss and Birth Trauma. Emilia is passionate about supporting and empowering parents at all stages of their parenting journey through the use of traditional ancestral knowledge and modern trauma-informed psychotherapy. Emilia is a mother to a spirited and emotionally attuned 8-year-old who loves the fact that mommy helps other mommies not be sad, and wife to the most supportive and socially conscious husband.

Nayeli Corona-Zitney is a bilingual, licensed clinical social worker whose private practice in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, specializes in Perinatal Mental Health. Her experience includes therapeutic work with adolescents, families, and new parents experiencing perinatal mood disorders. Nayeli is an active member of Postpartum International (PSI) and currently volunteers as PSI’s support coordinator for Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in California. Nayeli is committed to offering her expertise to the community. She does this through her private practice and also by facilitating pregnancy and postpartum support groups in the community in both English and Spanish. Nayeli is a wife, mother of two, and Perinatal Mental Health Advocate who integrates a social justice framework, which recognizes how migration and historical socio-political policies can negatively impact certain groups.

Puntos destacados del podcast:

Es de vital importancia cuidar la salud mental de las madres durante el parto y posparto.
Por la situación de incertidumbre actual, el estrés en la mujer es especialmente difícil para las embarazadas y para las que acaban de dar a luz.
Hay que garantizar el bienestar de las madres, cuidarlas y darles el apoyo emocional que necesitan, siendo tan vulnerables y sensibles en esta etapa.
Depresión y ansiedad en la etapa perinatal, Nayeli se especializó en esta fase porque durante el embarazo de su hija tuvo un parto traumático y le tuvieron que hacer una cesárea de emergencia.
deben ser lo suficientemente fuertes como para hacerlo ellas solas.
La obligación de dar y recibir apoyo no solo recae sobre la madre sino a todo el mundo de su alrededor.

Recursos:

Consejería Terapia del Diálogo:

Terapia cognitiva conductal
Terapia interpersonal
Desensibilización y deprocesamiento por medio de movimientos oculares.

Grupos de terapia del Hospital Columbia Valley: 2 veces al mes, el primer y tercer miércoles de cada mes.
Grupos de apoyo PSI (Postpartum Support International)
Corazón counselling
Nayeli LCSW

Corazon Counseling

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