Therapy for women's health, motherhood and the transition to parenthood
Reproductive medicine, pregnancy and early motherhood ask a great deal of the body. What does not fit into a clinic appointment can be said here.
A free 15-minute call first. I usually reply within 2 working days.
You might recognise
- My whole calendar belongs to the clinic, and I have stopped planning anything that is mine.
- I am pregnant after a long wait and I will not let myself enjoy it.
- I lost a pregnancy other people never knew about, and I am grieving alone.
- The birth was not what I was promised, and I keep going back to it.
- I love my baby and I do not recognise the woman holding him.
- I am told my results are normal, and I still feel wrong inside my own body.
Why it happens
Reproductive medicine runs on cycles, dates and results, and it asks you to hope on a schedule. Every round contains a wait that cannot be shortened and an outcome you do not control. Months, and sometimes years, inside that rhythm wear down the ordinary sense that effort and result are connected. Loss in this field usually stays invisible to everyone else. A pregnancy that ended early, a transfer that did not take, a diagnosis that changes what is possible - these are real losses with no ritual, and grief with nowhere to go tends to leak into work, sleep and the relationship. Birth and the first year add another layer. A body that has been examined, measured and sometimes injured, a nervous system running on broken sleep, and a social message that this is meant to be the happiest time. Where the birth was frightening or the care felt disrespectful, post-traumatic responses are common and are frequently misread as ordinary exhaustion. Hormonal conditions - endometriosis, PCOS, thyroid disorders, perimenopause - arrive with a history of being told the pain is normal and the tests look fine. Years of not being believed change how a woman speaks to clinicians, and how much she is still willing to ask for.
How therapy helps here
- Integrative individual therapy
- We combine psychodynamic work on what this stage touches in your own history with cognitive behavioural tools for the parts of the week that are unmanageable now. In practice that is often both the meaning of not being a mother yet and a workable plan for the two-week wait.
- EMDR for a specific medical memory
- A traumatic birth, an emergency caesarean, an internal examination that felt violating, or the moment of being told there was no heartbeat can each be targeted directly. Processing one memory often changes how much the whole period intrudes.
- Grief work that calls the loss by its name
- Miscarriage, a failed cycle, a termination for medical reasons and the end of treatment are losses. We give them the time and the language they were not given elsewhere, including the ambivalence that usually comes with them.
- Preparation for medical conversations and decisions
- We rehearse what you want to ask, what you want to refuse, and how to say it while lying on an examination couch facing several people. This is practical work and it changes the appointments themselves.
- Parent guidance alongside the therapy
- Where the difficulty sits in the relationship with your child rather than inside you, part of the work can be focused parent guidance: what happens between you, what the child needs, and what is realistic in the household you actually have.
What the first sessions look like
- We start from where you are in the medical picture - mid-cycle, post-partum, waiting for a result - because that determines what therapy can usefully do this month.
- You choose what to tell and in what order. Nothing has to be explained in full in the first hour.
- We agree a focus, and I will tell you if what you need is primarily medical or requires a psychiatric opinion.
- If your diary is set by the clinic, we plan how to keep the work continuous rather than pausing every time.
You are allowed to want this and to hate what it is doing to you. Neither cancels the other, and neither makes you ungrateful.
What this does not replace
Therapy does not replace fertility treatment, obstetric care, gynaecological investigation or psychiatric assessment, and it does not diagnose or manage a hormonal condition. Where there are significant signs of post-natal depression, or thoughts of harming yourself or the baby, medical and psychiatric care come first and I will help you reach it. Some women are better served by in-person or multidisciplinary care, and I will say so plainly.
Common questions
How long is a session and what does it cost?
An individual session is 45-50 minutes and costs €130. A group session is 90 minutes and costs €70-100. All sessions are online, in Hebrew or English.
Can I come in the middle of fertility treatment?
Yes, and that is how most women arrive. We adapt the work to the treatment cycle instead of waiting for a calm period, because in this field the calm period usually does not come.
I lost a pregnancy years ago. Is it too late to work on it?
No. Grief that was never given room does not expire, and it tends to resurface at the next pregnancy, at a due date, or when someone close announces theirs. Older losses can be worked on.
Do you work with women who have stopped treatment, or who will not have children?
Yes. Ending treatment, choosing not to begin, and living without the children you expected are legitimate subjects in their own right, not failures to be talked out of.
Can my partner join?
The work here is individual. A partner can join a session when there is a shared decision to discuss, and where the main difficulty is the relationship itself I will suggest couple therapy with someone who does that work.
Related areas
Fertility and reproductive health
For treatment cycles, waiting, loss and the decisions nobody prepared you for, including the decision about whether to stop.
Read moreChronic illness and diabetes
For living alongside a long-term diagnosis: the appointments, the numbers, and the self-management that never quite finishes.
Read morePTSD and medical trauma
Intrusive memories, avoidance and heightened alertness after a frightening medical event or another trauma. EMDR and related evidence-based work.
Read more
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A free 15-minute call first. I usually reply within 2 working days.