Life changing, experiential training that shifts the way we conceptualize, treat, and support women who are conceiving, birthing, and raising children.
The Mothercentric™ Approach brings an Internal Family Systems-informed, holistic vision for understanding and treating Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADS) - not as disorder in mothers - but rather as the consequence of parts and patriarchy during matrescence and the accompanying disease of shame new mothers get saddled with. This is not a course about diagnosing PMADs - it's a course about working effectively with matrescent women (using IFS) without making mothers into identified patients on behalf of a patriarchal society that exiles their needs and dismisses their value.
Suicide is the leading cause of death in postpartum women. 20% of new mothers in America (17 million women) are “sick” with a Perinatal Mood or Anxiety Disorder.
WTF?
What is the Mothercentric™ Approach?
Baby-centrism is the norm in a culture that doesn't validate or prioritize the profound needs of the people who are the greatest influencers of the human species - MOTHERS. And compounding that neglect - a new mom’s own inner system is also baby-centric, as her physical body and psychological parts reconfigure and redirect her attention and resources away from herself and to her baby.
The solution?
Moms need support for listening to the quiet distant voice of self-interest again. They need time, space and permission to tune into and tend to their own experience. They need to be part of a community that normalizes their parts, their truths and their needs. The Mothercentric Approach is a rich and broad curriculum, created to educate and support practitioners in being able to hold unique supportive space for perinatal clients, inclusive of all their parts.
Until that happens, moms will continue to show up as “disordered.”
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Redefining PMADs
The Mothercentric™ Approach provides a new way of looking at PMADs and matrescence, focusing on an expectable set of Mom Parts that emerge in matrescence. The intensity and prominence of these parts create an imbalance or destabilization in internal leadership, designed to funnel and redirect resources to the new baby. When the context in which this massive shift takes place is imbued with patriarchy, mothers more often than not begin to be run by outer and inner critics, intense anxiety and shame. Moms exist in protection mode, a survival oriented state that feels like failure and looks like “disorder.” Society lives with the painful results - the regifting of trauma and the handing down of legacy burdens.
A Preview of the two days
Redefining PMADs
8:45 am: Doors open to in-person attendees
Coffee, tea and goodies provided
9:00 am: Greetings and orientation
Meditation
Redefining PMADS
10:00 am: Integrating Internal Family Systems
IFS introduction/review
Experiential Meditation (with breakout rooms)
11:00 am: Respecting Matrescence as a Developmental Phase
12:30 pm - 2 pm: Lunch off campus
2:00 pm: Contending with Patriarchy
3:30 pm: Questions and wrap up
4:30 pm: Finish day 1
Why Use The Mothercentric™ Approach?
ONE
The only Internal Family Systems informed perinatal mental health training.
TWO
Views matrescence as a wild developmental phase with unique healing potential (not a disorder).
THREE
Identifies predictable Mom Parts to support deep exploration and healing of intergenerational wounds.
FOUR
Names psychological patriarchy as a propagator of shame, and shame as a primary culprit in PMADs.
Five
Gives practitioners confidence in working with all Mom Parts, even the scary ones.
Rebecca Geshuri and Jessica Sorci are both Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, Internal Family Systems Therapists and also Perinatal Mental Health Certified. As Co-Founders of Family Tree Wellness in Silicon Valley, California, Rebecca and Jessica lead their one-of-a-kind IFS-informed group psychotherapy practice that provides counseling, education and support for people who are in the family building phase of life. They are wildly enthusiastic about creating trainings and supporting other therapists who want to deepen their knowledge and skill with using IFS and working in Reproductive Mental Health. Most importantly, they are mothers on their own healing journeys who bring personal experience with grief and growing, mixed with creative expression and spirituality to their work. Their goal is nothing short of shifting the motherhood paradigm and healing humanity's intergenerational burdens.
Participants will be offered a new paradigm for thinking about the mental health of new mothers - a more holistically informed perspective that considers the perinatal phase of life as a portal to healing humanity’s legacies of trauma and suffering. Participants will work with the material experientially, engaging their own inner systems through guided IFS meditations and opportunities to explore their own parts in community. In this course we present the Four Cornerstones of the Mothercentric™ Approach, which provide a foundation for conceptualizing cases and treating new mothers, as well as the Outside-Inside Method that supports the exploration of symptoms and the uncovering of ubiquitous shame that accompanies modern motherhood.
Ticket Prices
*early bird pricing through May 19, 2024
*This course is approved by PSI for continuing education, relevant to advanced training
for obtaining PMH-C's.
Family Tree Wellness, Inc (Provider #1000049) is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education; course meets the qualifications for 10 hours of continuing education credit for LMFT’s, LCSW’s, LPCC’s and LEP’s as required by the California Board of Behavioral Science. Course completion certificates will be awarded at the end of the course in exchange for a completed evaluation form. Family Tree Wellness, Inc maintains responsibility for the program & all of its content.