(she/her)
Motherhood will change everything you thought you knew about yourself. I'm Amanda, a licensed mental health counselor specializing in matrescence, the identity work of becoming a mother. I work with women in pregnancy, postpartum, and the years that follow, when the woman who walked in no longer fits and you are not quite sure who is emerging. My clients are often high-functioning on the outside and quietly exhausted on the inside. They are tired of surface-level coping skills and ready to do the deeper work. I bring years of clinical experience, a background in executive healthcare leadership, and specialized training in perinatal mental health and EMDR. I also provide affirming, safe care for members of the gender expansive community. If you are willing to be honest, even when it is uncomfortable, we will do really good work together.
Our first session is where we get to know each other. There is no pressure to have it all figured out or to tell me everything at once. We will go at your pace. I want to hear what brought you here. What is feeling heavy right now, what you have already tried, and what you are hoping life looks like on the other side of this work. I will ask questions, but mostly I will listen. By the end, you will have a sense of how I work and whether it feels like the right fit, and we will map out where we go from here. My style is warm but direct. I will hold space for the hard stuff, and I will also gently challenge you when it is time to go deeper. You do not have to arrive polished. You just have to show up honest.
My greatest strength is that I do not stop at symptom management. A lot of therapy teaches you to cope. I help you get underneath the thing that keeps showing up, so you are not just managing it forever. I specialize in matrescence, the identity shift of becoming a mother. Most clients have never had a name for what they are going through. Naming it changes everything. My work pulls from EMDR, nervous system regulation, and intergenerational pattern work, the way the things we inherited from our own mothers quietly shape how we parent. I help women rewrite those patterns instead of repeating them. I also bring a background in executive healthcare leadership. I understand what it is like to carry responsibility for everyone else while quietly running on empty. Warm but direct is how I show up. I will sit with you in the hard parts, and I will also be honest with you when something needs to be said.
My ideal client is a woman who looks like she has it together and feels like she is falling apart. She is pregnant, postpartum, or somewhere in the long becoming that follows. She loves her child deeply and still grieves the woman she used to be. Both things are true and she feels guilty about all of it. She is high-functioning on the outside and quietly exhausted on the inside. She has tried to push through. She is good at taking care of everyone else. She is tired of coping skills that only scratch the surface. She is ready to go deeper. To look at the patterns she inherited, the story she has been carrying, and who she actually wants to become. She is willing to be honest, even when it is uncomfortable. I also work with leaders, professionals, and helpers who hold enormous responsibility for others and rarely get a space to just be a person. If any of this sounds like you, you are exactly who I do this work for.
Other specialties
I identify as
Narrative
I love narrative therapy because so much of becoming a mother is a story problem. You inherited a story about what a good mother is. You absorbed one about who you are supposed to be. And somewhere along the way, those stories started running the show without you noticing. In our work, we separate you from the problem. You are not broken, anxious, or failing. You are a woman carrying a story that no longer fits. I help you look at where those stories came from, often generations back, and decide which ones you actually want to keep. Then we start writing a new one. One where you are the author, not the character things happen to. This work pairs especially well with the identity shift of matrescence, because motherhood cracks the old story wide open and gives you a rare chance to rewrite it on purpose.
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
CBT is often where we start, because it works. When you are pregnant or postpartum, your thoughts can spiral fast. The fear that you are doing it all wrong. The certainty that everyone else has it figured out. The voice that says you should be grateful, so why do you feel like this. With CBT, we slow those thoughts down and look at them honestly. We notice the patterns. We catch the stories your mind tells you under stress and ask whether they are actually true. Then we build something steadier in their place. I use CBT to give you tools you can reach for in the hard moments, the 3am feed, the doctor's appointment that did not go as planned, the day you feel like you are failing. It is practical and it is grounding. And for many of my clients, it is the foundation we build the deeper identity work on top of.
Gender-affirming therapy
Gender-affirming therapy means you do not have to explain or defend who you are in my office. You are the expert on your own identity. My job is not to question it. My job is to support you as you navigate everything around it. For many of my clients, the hard part is not their gender. It is the world's response to it. The relationships that shifted. The systems that make things harder than they need to be. The exhaustion of being misunderstood. We work on that. The stress, the relationships, the identity, the life you are building. This is also deeply personal to me. My husband is a clinician who helped develop gender identity counseling standards for our field, and affirming care is woven into how we both practice. You deserve a space that is safe, knowledgeable, and genuinely affirming. That is what I work to give you.
Mind-body approach
Your body keeps score long before your mind catches up. So much of what my clients feel does not start as a thought. It shows up as a tight chest before a feeding. A racing heart at bedtime. A bone-deep exhaustion that no amount of sleep seems to touch. Motherhood is a physical experience as much as an emotional one. Your nervous system has been through something. Pretending otherwise does not help. In our work, we pay attention to what your body is telling us. We learn to recognize when you are activated, when you are shut down, and how to come back to steady. I teach you practical ways to regulate your nervous system, so you are not white-knuckling your way through the day. This is not about relaxing more or trying harder. It is about working with your body instead of against it, so calm becomes something you can actually access, not just something you chase.
EMDR
Some things do not heal just by talking about them. You can understand exactly why you feel the way you do and still feel it in your body every single day. That is where EMDR comes in. EMDR helps your brain reprocess the experiences that got stuck. The birth that did not go as planned. The loss. The childhood moment you thought you were over. The memory that still hijacks you when you least expect it. You do not have to relive it in detail or talk through every part of it. EMDR works differently than traditional talk therapy, and for many people, that is exactly why it finally works. This is the work I am most passionate about, and it is becoming the heart of how I help mamas heal at a deeper level. For clients who are ready to go deep, I also offer EMDR intensives, focused sessions that move through the work faster than a once-a-week pace allows. If something still has a grip on you that you cannot think your way out of, this is the work I would point you toward.