Applications of SE: Bringing the Body into Perinatal Mental Health with Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C

This presentation will unfold the rationales, principles, and techniques for adapting a somatic approach to treatment of trauma in Perinatal Mental Health and reproductive psychology. Despite ample research and clinical experience demonstrating the salience of co-regulation in the transition to parenthood, somatic approaches are not widely used and adapted for the treatment of Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders. The perinatal transition, especially when including pregnancy and delivery, is a time of heightened vulnerability to the impact of trauma, toxic stress, and allostatic load. Focusing on trauma in Perinatal Mental Health is therefore not optional.

 

Trauma-informed perinatal care is built on awareness of how past trauma can impact new mothers and parents, sensitivity to the risks of traumatization during the perinatal period, and active measures to prevent and mitigate traumatic stress reactions related to all aspects of the perinatal transition. Trauma-informed care is also particularly important for mothers and parents from diverse and marginalized groups who are disproportionately affected by trauma and are less likely to receive treatment. From a biopsychosocial and somatic psychology framework, trauma-responsive clinical skills include: nervous system psychoeducation that empowers clients, therapeutic safety through coregulation and attunement that is sensitive to the unique circumstances of the perinatal period, and the clinician’s acknowledgement of and transparency about the significant systemic disparities in perinatal care.

 

In this presentation, the application of the principles of trauma-informed care to the unique needs of perinatal clients will be demonstrated through concrete clinical skills of nervous system tracking and co-regulatory building of therapeutic safety. Sensory awareness skills are practiced differently with the expecting or new parents. Common barriers to trauma-responsive perinatal care stem from provider bias reactions to the unique vicissitudes of the perinatal transition that interfere with therapeutic safety. These barriers will be addressed along with concrete tools for how to work with them using perinatal-sensitive resonance, attunement, and somatic countertransference.