Hello!
I'm Alex!
I'm a Perinatal Somatic Practitioner with extensive training in different disciplines concerning maternal and infant health. My approach to supporting families is holistic and considers the whole being, from previous generations, conception to after birth.
I help parents connect with their baby’s prenatal and birth experiences and become sovereign in their baby’s healing journey.
I use a unique combination of a somatic, sensory and attachment-based approaches, grounded on polyvagal theory, energy psychology and pre and perinatal psychology to help parents learn to identify their strengths, honour their vulnerabilities, heal their baby’s early imprints through informed compassion, and lead more connected relationships with their babies, AND themselves.
I'm a mother
I'm a mother of two special boys, who have not only saved me, but are also the reason why I am on a mission to support babies and mothers, fathers and parents who have been through difficult births, and just like us, deserve the kind of early support that can change their lives forever.
I'm a survivor
When difficult prenatal and birth experiences are met with later difficult experiences that are allowed to live in your body without a way out, the amount of effort and pain needed to keep your psyche alive is unsurmountable. My path has been one of re-parenting myself and parenting my babies without a map, finding our way through our old wounds and new ones. It's the blessing of trauma, and the lessons I've learned about human nature are complex and deep. I survived to tell the story.
a bit more about me
My background is in the Tavistock model of psychoanalytic infant observation and child development.
I trained with the Brazelton Foundation, both in the UK and in Portugal, and I completed an MA with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, in London, in Working with Babies, Children and Families through a Psychoanalytic Approach. This training allowed me to learn about mental states and psychological development through observation, and experience a 2 year-long relationship between a mother and a baby, from birth, and a one-year-long observation of a toddler in a London nursery school.
This was the foundation of what was to become the core of my approach, exploring the healing potential through listening to the subconscious mind and the use of the body as a therapeutic tool.
As I gained experience through my doula client’s stories and the healing journey with my children (and my own), I became very much aware of how much difficult early experiences impact parents and children and challenged their relationships in ways that was difficult to comprehend only through a relational and attachment-based lens, and therefore, I struggled to provide adequate support.
So, I started to dive deep into different schools of thought, looking for something that viewed the whole being holistically. I learned about newborn behaviour, the neurobiology of attachment, neuroscience, birth trauma, generational trauma, polyvagal theory, energy psychology, somatic experiencing, sensory integration, and mostly, in the field I am most passionate about, pre- and perinatal psychology.
Prenatal and birth imprints impact who we are and how we develop as individuals, and baby therapy is my main area of intervention, where I keep specializing in, with my beloved mentor and world-renowned baby therapist Karlton Terry.
Baby Therapy is an early intervention that parents and babies who have experienced difficult births need to prevent future emotional and developmental challenges.
I want parents to feel loved and nurtured so they feel resourced enough to be present for their babies and children.