Parenting is its own territory; a significant identity shift, and one Claire has a genuine interest in and clinical experience with. The transition to parenthood is one of the most significant identity shifts a person can navigate. Matrescence, the process of becoming a mother, is still poorly understood and frequently underacknowledged, and the gap between what parenthood was expected to feel like and what it actually feels like can be quietly destabilising, even when things are going well on the outside. The same is true of patrescence, the psychological transition into fatherhood, and the equivalent shift for non-birthing parents in same-sex partnerships, these transitions are just as real, and just as often overlooked. 

This work also holds the relational side of parenting: the impact on couplehood, the way family-of-origin patterns resurface once we become parents ourselves, the developmental work of learning to parent alongside a partner, and the particular exhaustion of caring for others while trying to maintain a sense of self. 

The experience of the non-birthing parent is often overlooked in conversations about perinatal mental health and the transition to parenthood, and yet the adjustment, the identity shift, the relational changes, and the emotional weight of this period are real and significant regardless of how you came to parenthood. Partners, co-parents, adoptive parents, and others who are not the birthing person are equally welcome here. You don't need to have carried a pregnancy to find this work relevant, and you don't need to be struggling visibly to deserve support. 

Whether you are navigating your own experience of parenthood or something that has shifted since becoming a parent, this is a space for that.