Couples Therapy for Pregnancy Postnatal & Early Parenthood
Pregnancy, birth and the first year of parenthood change everything — including the relationship between you and your partner. It's one of the most significant transitions a couple will ever go through, and it's normal for it to put real pressure on even the strongest relationships.
If you're finding that exhaustion, anxiety, low mood, or a growing sense of distance between you has become part of this chapter, you don't have to navigate it alone — and you don't have to navigate it as separate individuals. Couples therapy during this period offers a space for both of you to be supported together, helping you to get back to feeling more connected again.
What happens to couples in pregnancy & postnatally?
The transition to parenthood asks a lot of a couple. Roles shift. Sleep disappears. Resources are stretched- time, energy, capacity, money. You both come to parenthood and partnership with your own ideas and expectations about how this should look. Sometimes this aligns, others times these might conflict. One or both of you may be dealing with anxiety, low mood, or depression, whether that started in pregnancy, after birth, or crept in somewhere in between.
These struggles rarely sit with one person alone. When one partner is depressed or anxious, it often changes things between you. And in turn, how connected or disconnected you feel as a couple can impact on how you’re feeling. This is why working on your relationship itself, not just with you as an individual, can be such a powerful route through. Couples therapy is about making sense of what’s happening between you, the patterns you get stuck in, and finding routes forward.
Couples Therapy for Depression: My approach
Many couples in this period are dealing with relationship strain that impacts on the mood of one or both partners — for this, I draw on an approach developed by Tavistock Relationships, one of the UK's leading couple therapy organisations, called Couples Therapy for Depression.
It's a recognised, evidence-based approach recommended in NICE guidelines (the body that sets standards for care in the NHS) specifically for depression that's connected to relationship distress. The approach blends ideas from cognitive, behavioural, emotion-focused, systemic and psychodynamic therapy.
This way of working starts by exploring the difficulties your experiencing in your relationship and the impact this is having on you both. Together we will seek to understand you individual experiences; the ideas and expectations you have about relationships and parenthood, your experiences of couple relationships growing up and how these influence your ideas and feelings about relationships now. We will explore how these might differ between you and may be contributing to you feeling stuck. We might also explore your cultural beliefs and experiences around relationships or how neurodiversity may shape aspects of your relationship.
Often in relationships we can get stuck in patterns of trying to change our partners which can be an endless trap. To help you get unstuck, the focus of this early work is about building a deeper emotional understanding of each other. This helps to move to a place that is more accepting of your differences and enables you to feel more connected and move forward together.
Following on from this initial stage of therapy we will work together on more practical tools and techniques to help you to move away from the patterns you’ve got caught in together. This is tailored to your difficulties and might include; improving communication, building appreciation and moving away from resentment, helping you to cope with external stressors as a couple, working on changes and challenges around intimacy and helping you to work through problems together.
Is couples therapy right for you?
I understand the importance of finding the right fit for couples therapy. This approach might be a good fit for you as a couple if…
You feel more like co-parents than partners, and you miss the connection you used to have
your relationship has changed and you’re feeling stuck in patterns that are impacting on your mood
you both feel you want to stay together but you’re finding you’re arguing a lot and want help to move forwards
you’re feeling burnt out and struggling to support each other in ways that feel helpful
you’re struggling to navigate the changes that this phase of life brings together
One or both of you is dealing with low mood, anxiety, or depression during pregnancy or after birth
You're finding it hard to feel like a team since becoming parents
Communication has broken down, or conflict has increased
You want support adjusting to this new stage of life before things feel unmanageable
How will Couples Therapy help our relationship?
Every couple and relationship is unique and we will work towards your own goals. At the end of therapy often couples say they…
feel more connected again
feel less resentful and more appreciative of each other
have a better understanding of their partner and each others needs
understand how their early experiences have shaped the ways they function as a couple and where they get stuck
have strategies to help them communicate better as a couple and get unstuck
feel more able to work as a team again
have a range of practical tools and strategies to manage the challenging bits of early parenthood together
Sessions are for both partners together, typically weekly
We usually work over around 16-20 sessions, with the pace and length tailored to what you need
Sessions are available in person or online, so this can fit around a new baby's schedule
Everything is confidential, and there's no pressure to have "the answer" before you start — many couples come mid-struggle, not quite knowing what’s wrong, just that something needs to change
Getting started…
Reaching out during this period can feel difficult — sleep deprivation and a new baby make everything harder, including picking up the phone.
I want to make the first step as simple as possible.
Book an initial consultation to talk about what's going on for you both and whether this approach is the right fit.
Still have questions? Check out the FAQS or get in touch.
What couples Therapy sessions look like…
I’m fully Accredited with the British Association For Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapy (BABCP), an accredited member of the Professional Standards Authority. You can check the BABCP register by searching my full name (Elizabeth Siddell) online here
