The interviewer: Arabella received her B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University, completed one-year’s M.A. coursework in clinical psychology, and spent many years in business management.  A Buddhist student and practitioner for thirteen years, Arabella has written a book on Buddhist reform that is in its final editing stages.

Arabella: How did you become interested in psychology – and then, specifically, in prenatal and perinatal psychology?

Carrie: Great question.  Let’s see – I’ve always been really fascinated by babies.  From the age of seven I spent my afternoons helping the moms in my neighborhood with their children. So, since childhood I’ve always known, on some level, that I wanted to understand babies and children, and I wanted to do something that would allow me to spend time with families.

All throughout grade school I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician because I believed it would be a way I could work with babies and families.  However, when I got to college I decided that I didn’t really want to study science.  Something sort of pulled me off that track.  As an undergraduate I got really excited by psychology – specifically, women’s psychology. After graduating from Hamilton College, I began on a path toward midwifery. But again, in taking the prerequisite classes I realized that midwifery wasn’t quite what I wanted to do either.  In the midst of that phase of my journey, I started getting more interested in holistic health. I started to realize that I was very curious as to why adults in our culture spend so much time and money fixing what happened to them as children.  I also began to wonder what it meant to be “healthy” and  “whole.” So that really sparked the question in my mind of what would it look like if we were to welcome and care for children in a way that honored, respected and nurtured their wholeness from the very beginning? 

That question led me to pursue a Master’s program in Health Education at the University of Texas. During my time in that program I customized the program to satisfy my interests in holistic prenatal, birth and early childhood health education. While in that program I learned about doulas and studied breastfeeding and started to learn about more natural ways of parenting. In addition to what I was learning in school, I also began meeting and working with parents who were practicing conscious parenting. They showed me very clearly that the way that their children were being cared for and related to was really having an impact on their children’s behavior.  As a result, these children were, and still are, very connected to themselves and to others. After my time at UT, I worked for a couple of years and then I learned about APPPAH. 

I realized that there was a whole field of people studying just what I had been learning about. So, I attended my first APPPAH congress in 1999, learned about SBGI in the spring of 2000, and enrolled in the first class of the pre- and perinatal psychology program in the fall of 2000.

Arabella: Could you define prenatal and perinatal psychology for us?

Carrie: Oh wow – that’s a really good question. To me, prenatal and perinatal psychology is the study of our earliest experiences and how they influence our lives later on.

Arabella: In your Doctoral Dissertation’s abbreviated abstract – which can be accessed from this newsletter’s abstracts/bios section – you discussed the subject of your research: how the education of two women (who had completed Ph.D. level coursework in prenatal and perinatal psychology) informed and/or impacted their own parenting.  Would you encapsulate their wisdom – concisely speak their experience – for us?

Carrie: Hmmm.  Sure.  Let’s see, right before we began our third year of the program, two of my classmates got pregnant.  So, in the midst of studying this field, these two women were living it, applying what they were learning – academically and therapeutically – to their experience of gestating, birthing and caring for their babies. A lot of our own learning was really about exploring our own prenatal and perinatal histories. 

What I discovered through my research was that what these women were learning at school – about babies and human development, specifically, about how conscious their babies were during and after birth – offered them an opportunity to relate to their children differently. They also recognized that their own pre- and perinatal experiences influenced their beliefs about themselves and their own nervous systems’ patterns of regulation and dysregulation. All of this allowed them to feel that they were able to deeply connect with their children – again, not just after birth, but before and during birth as well. In doing so, they created a foundation of deep relationship.

In addition, each of these women learned the importance of their own self-care and self-regulation. They completely recognized how their ability to stay emotionally balanced directly influenced and influences their children’s abilities to stay emotionally balanced. 

Arabella: The end of your abstract states that the information you gained from conducting your dissertation research, “will be used to create new models of care and education for women and their families.”  What models do you envision as evolving for our society?

Carrie: Well, I’m really excited about developing these new models and really what it comes down to is offering parents – within parenthood – more support and education from preconception through childhood. I envision a society where parents enter parenthood with a very clear sense of their own earliest experiences and a very deep understanding of prenatal and perinatal psychology. During this very important period of time, parents would be gathering in groups, sharing their joys and concerns, and learning how to care for themselves and their children in ways that optimize health and wellbeing for the whole family.

Arabella: What are the societal changes that are necessary for this new paradigm to achieve broad acceptance?

Carrie: Well, I really see that we need to start at a level of understanding the importance of this early period.  We can’t ignore any longer that what happens to us from conception on is setting the foundation for who we’ll become.  So, really investing money into programs that offer parents more education and support, and really recognizing that separating moms and babies in the beginning of life – whether it’s at birth or six weeks after – is detrimental not just to the wellbeing of that family, but to the wellbeing of our society as a whole! To me, truly, if we’re going to create a world of people who care about the health of humanity and of our planet, we have got to start with caring for moms and babies before, during, and after birth. 

Arabella: How would you encourage others to enter this cutting-edge field?

Carrie:  I think that the field of pre- and perinatal psychology – in five or ten years – is going to be a household phrase.  So, anybody who feels moved toward this field, I’d say, please follow that impulse and please come explore what it’s all about!  We need all the people that we can get to be: doing the research, spreading the message, and sharing a vision of a world where babies are welcomed by healthy, whole, educated and supported parents. I believe we are right on the edge of something really powerful!
.
Arabella: What is the story of how your consultation, coaching, and education service – Early Parenting – began?

Carrie: Well, let’s see, I was in school at Santa Barbara Graduate Institute and I was working with families and starting to do some classes…I just realized that there was a need for parents to have more information, more support and more guidance around this early time.  So, I just literally created it by saying, “I’m an early parenting coach, and I’m really excited about supporting you during this time!”  And people started coming. They come for all sorts of reasons. A lot of times, they’re coming with issues – whether it’s a mom who is pregnant and having a lot of anxiety or parents who feel overwhelmed by the needs of their newborn. So, a lot of it was just putting it out there, setting my own intentions.  I imagined creating this, and all of a sudden, it just started happening. 

Arabella: How has Early Parenting changed with time – and where do you see yourself taking it?

Carrie: My practice is growing and I get more clients every week.  Ever since I finished my dissertation it seems like the word has gotten out. So, where do I see myself taking this?  I thoroughly enjoy working with individual clients, but I really love speaking with large groups. So, I see myself doing that even more in the future. I imagine I will be writing and sharing this information through books and workshops and doing a lot of traveling and speaking – really getting this information out in a very big way. Eventually I would like to train others who are interested in doing similar work.

Arabella: How do you utilize energy psychology in teaching parenting skills?

Carrie: Oh, that’s a great question. Well, I was turned onto EFT (the emotional freedom technique) and TAT (the Tapis Accupressure Technique) by Dr. Wendy Anne McCarty, who was the pre- and perinatal program Chair when I started SBGI in 2000. I’ve been studying and working with these two techniques for the past two years. One of the biggest thrills is the success I’ve had in using these techniques with mothers who feel that their birth experiences were not what they wanted or expected. As a result of their experiences, they’re often left feeling a lot of anger, fear, and disappointment.  In our work together, they have been able to share their stories and separate out their feelings about their experiences from their feelings about themselves and their children.

Arabella: Did SBGI influence – or shape – what we’ve been discussing?

Carrie: Oh, one hundred percent!  There’s no question.  I don’t think I would be who I am today – on a personal or a professional level – without having gone through SBGI’s program.  And I tell people every day that I didn’t just get a Ph.D. in pre- and perinatal psychology, I got a Ph.D. in myself, I got a Ph.D. in relationships, I got a Ph.D. in teaching.  I mean, I feel that everything and more than I could have ever imagined getting out of the program has happened.  So, to me, it was the best investment in my personal and professional self, and in my future, that I could have ever made! 

Arabella: What were some of the best lessons you gained from teachers at SBGI?

Carrie: The main piece that so strongly came through, and really became so evident while I was working on my dissertation, was that I just completely transformed my consciousness. In recognizing my own early history – understanding it differently than I had understood it – I started noticing patterns in my life that were repeating themselves. And in understanding that those patterns really got laid down in my own early experience – by having that awareness in the midst of getting into new situations – I would have choice. 

And – having choice – you can say, “Oh wow, because I know my past choice was to go that way, I’m recognizing that I could actually choose something different.”  And that’s a totally different way of being! There’s a lot more freedom in that. That was one of the main lessons. Then, also holding a different way of being – not only with babies and children, but also with just anyone I’m working with! I really choose to see and be with them in a way that honors their consciousness and honors their wholeness.  And finally, just really, really working on how my own self-regulation and my relationship to my body and to myself – how important that is, with my clients and in modeling that for families.

 So, I’m sharing with families that the parents’ self-care is paramount to the child’s wellbeing while I’m challenged to actually put that into practice for myself. I need to be as regulated and as filled and healthy – and as whole – for my clients as I hope they will be for their children.  It’s a win-win situation for myself and for my clients because the more I learn, the more I care for myself.  And the more I care for myself, the more available, present, and whole I can be for my clients.

Arabella: What did your fellow SBGI students – those in your classes – also teach you?

Carrie: Well, what was so fantastic for me about the program was that we were cohorts.  Our class stayed together, as a group, the whole three years!  Let me clarify that.  Some people did leave for a variety of reasons, but the core group of us – we were together the entire time, and a lot of our own issues were coming up.  With the support of our professors, we were able to really use our community to work through some of our own early patterns that could only come up in relation to other people.  So, for me, I felt like the group was really instrumental in giving me a reflection of my growth, my edges and my shadows.

Arabella: In what ways are you learning from your clients?

Carrie: Oh, I’m learning infinitely from my clients!  I mean, they’re my biggest teachers.  I’m just learning a lot of patience and trust in this process – and recognizing that my clients are the ones that are doing the work.  The best thing that I can do is to provide them with a safe container – care for them and offer them the support and the guidance to explore themselves and their babies…allow them to unfold in their time. They’re showing me every single day that people are wanting and ready for this information – and that when they apply it, things are really changing…not only for them, but for their children.  And to me, that’s everything!

Arabella: The final Question: What is your most precious advice toward parents creating a conscious, connected and balanced life from conception through childhood?

Carrie: That’s a hard one!  Let me see - I think that….I guess very, very, very simply…that this is important information and we need to be conscious of it and to recognize how important this early time is for children and their parents.  AND – on the other side of that – it is crucial to hold it all really, really, really lightly, and to focus on loving, feeling the joy, and staying in the moment.  I really can’t stress enough that this is not about being perfect parents – it’s about being CONSCIOUS parents.  So, knowing that you’re going to make mistakes, knowing that it’s not about doing it exactly right (about being the perfect pre- and perinatal psychology parent), but simply using these tools to create deeper connections between you and yourself, and between you and your child.

Arabella: Un-self-consciously conscious.

Carrie:  Un-self-consciously conscious!  Wow!  I love that.