I'M PREGNANT
I'M LONELY
I'M POSTPARTUM
Five Common Beliefs of the Trauma Survivor:
1) You think that things are dangerous even when they are safe.
2) You think you are worthless even when others think you are wonderful.
3) You think that you are damaged even when you are loved.
4) You think what happened was your fault even when it was done to you.
5) You think you are stuck even though evidence-backed treatment leads to recovery. .
Many therapists and coaches rely on affirmation and empathy.
The trauma survivor deserves more than that.
She doesn’t want her reality affirmed; she wants it changed,
because trauma warps reality.
I will help you remove the trauma piece by piece until what is left is you.
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Just you.​
Guide you through evidence-backed protocols proven to treat trauma.
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Look at the connections through your history and thinking to find and treat the root of the problem.
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Create personalized homework tailored to your individual context.
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Listen to what's important to you to help you achieve your healing and goals.
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Apply old-fashioned or unproven methods that may not help you.
Pretend that I understand the problem from a surface-level analysis or previous assumptions.
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Prescribe an unrealistic program that would be difficult for you to maintain.
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Give up on you when the going gets tough.
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Pregnancy and new motherhood can incur profound loss: a loss of familiar rhythms and relationships; a loss of bodily and mental space; a loss of the selfhood that has sustained us.
Often, we do not name this loss because it arrives at the very time we are expected to be feeling only joy.
But without processing this loss, we cannot truly love motherhood. And without integrating our selfhood and motherhood, we stop growing.
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Motherhood is an invitation to transform the self.
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After being steamrolled by postpartum life, I left my job at Yale University to develop the first coaching practice devoted to intellectual mothers.
I'm Meredith Shepard, Ph.D., and I want you to have a motherhood that feeds who you are.
Fellow mother, where do you want to start?
