Postpartum & Birth Trauma Therapy for Dads & Couples in Fort Collins, Colorado
Meet Preston
My mission is to grow a safe place and felt sense of community through individual therapy and groups for the spectrum of postpartum dads and couples: grief after traumatic loss, changed relationship dynamics and identities postpartum, PTSD symptoms after overwhelming birth stories, even the new parent struggling to feel like themselves again.
Together we will be able to help you understand your anxiety, irritability, or sadness and learn how to no longer feel ashamed of it. In therapy you will be able to process a difficult birth or loss without feeling like you must continue to hold it all together. You will reclaim what an authentic lived experience means in this new chapter and learn to restore connection with yourself, your partner, and your baby in a way that feels deeply fulfilling again.
What’s therapy like?
Postpartum dads and couples face unique challenges. Many new parents feel unexpected sadness, anxiety, irritability, or engage in increased escapism behaviors. Often in partnership, one individual feels the bulk of the mental load while the other feels like an outsider to the whole experience. Together, we will be able to give voice to your unique experience, process areas that keep you feeling stuck, and help your nervous system shift into new ways of experiencing change that feel safe and manageable.
I view the therapeutic space we share and the experiences you bring forward as sacred. Therapy is meant to feel safe, while simultaneously challenging for growth. In your work with me you can expect to feel secure and seen and have your story treated carefully. I prioritize trauma informed care which means nothing has to feel like too much too fast.
You can expect to be offered tangible skills paired with the opportunity to connect with your body and the protected silence for deep reflection in order to feel more empowered to face your unique challenges. Through the use of techniques like EMDR, IFS, mindfulness, and somatic work you will be able to gently reconnect with yourself and be able to nurture the parts of yourself that you feel are temporarily wounded. As a dad or couple, this postpartum phase can be navigated in a way that feels successful to you!
EMDR
As a postpartum dad or couple, sometimes it’s hard to predict what emotions or challenges may come to the surface as you step into parenthood. You may experience grief, irritability, or patterns you hadn’t previously recognized in yourself. Despite your commitment to self care and dedicated use of coping skills you might engage in unhelpful habits, feel a constant sense of sadness, anxiety, or a general internal sense of tension.
Incorporating the use of EMDR into therapy sessions can be pivotal in healing and shifting towards a more freeing way to experience life, especially for postpartum dads, couples, and parents. Put into practice EMDR can soften your protective responses where hyper vigilance is no longer helpful and decrease the level of activation that past pain might continue to create.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful and highly researched treatment modality for trauma and other forms of mental illness that harnesses your nervous system’s natural healing process. EMDR has been shown to effectively reduce depressive symptoms, intrusive thoughts and flashbacks, anxious symptoms, and behavioral patterns that interfere with relationships and quality of life. Together we can safely reprocess and desensitize trauma or experiences that are driving your default emotional states and areas where you are feeling stuck. Postpartum life as a dad, and as a couple is challenging by nature, but it no longer has to feel debilitating.
I also love to work with:
Religious Trauma and Faith Transitions
Grief and Loss
Sex Positivity and Identity Exploration
PTSD and Complex PTSD
ADHD
LGBTQIA+ Experiences