Please welcome Christina Shore to the PWCB therapy team!

Please welcome Christina Shore to the PWCB therapy team! Christina recently completed her internship year with us and is now a graduate from Naropa University with a Masters in Counseling. Christina joins our team as a mid-range fee therapist (seeing patients from $60-$110) and will continue to be supervised by Emily Horowitz, LPC.

Thanks for answering our questions, Christina!

1. What led you to the field of maternal mental health?

There are countless ways that we are taught in western culture what aspects of humans are valued and rewarded and quite often there is a conflict between these and what is needed for new mothers/parents to thrive and what is needed for babies to thrive. Community, vulnerability, a slowing down, asking for help, tenderness, acknowledgment of grief, of disappointment, or confusion- these are to name a few. For me, maternal mental health can be looked at as the foundation for a more thriving humanity, as a metaphor for healing the place we come from, home, family, the earth. I came to this field because I believe that maternal mental health is foundational and precious work.

2. What do you enjoy most about working with new parents?

I really love exploring relationships with new parents. This includes relationship to self, new baby, other siblings, partners, parents and family of origin. This time of life is such a rich place to explore one’s relationship to their own body and to life as a whole. This also becomes a time to explore identity and who they want to be as parents and what types of humans they want to bring up in the world.

3. Do you notice any common themes in the moms/partners who you support? If so, what are they?

“Am I good enough?” “What is my value?” These questions are what come to mind when I consider themes. And, also, comparisons to their own parents or to other parenting peers.

4. Do you offer any specific skills/interests that you bring to your work at the PWCB?

My training is in somatic therapy, which means that I often support the clients I see to feel into how they know what they know or know what they’re feeling in the moment. There is often a lot of answers to our questions in the places we’ve ignored, disengaged from, or numbed out. Quite often, there is real wisdom in doing this and relief in learning how to do something different. There is power in learning how to recognize oneself and I think the body is a big part of that.

5. What do you want people to know about you as a therapist?

I think it is crucial for my work as a therapist to continuously reflect on the systems that impact all of us and how different the impact is depending on our sociocultural identities. Gender, socioeconomic class, race, ability, religion- and so many more aspects intersect to form each person’s culture. This is where we parent from, this also impacts what’s expected of us, how others treat us, and what resources we have access to.

Systems can include institutional systems, family systems, political systems, nervous systems . . . I could name a lot more, but the point is they all interact with one another. They all come into the room differently with every person I sit with and I believe it would be a disservice to the clients I see not to hold awareness of all these layers.

Click Here to book an appointment with Christina.