About: Hi, I’m Gena. I’m here to support you to build bridges between your heart and your womb, between your birth imprints and your present life, between your personal, parenting and professional paths and between traditional perinatal health care and perinatal integrative health care.
I am committed to teaching skills that heal, reduce and prevent trauma through education and community building. Experience and research show us that when we address trauma and triggers we can reclaim our physiological innate capacity during the perinatal period for wonder and connection.
The Short Story: I am Gena McCarthy RN, MFT #32708, a perinatal psychotherapist, a certified EMDR (PTSD treatment) provider and the developer of multiple community and county maternity emotional wellness care networks and integrative health programs. I have been a consultant and educator for maternity care clinic staff in psychological/spiritual self care and growth for many years. I am trained in cross-cultural Shamanic and Buddhist ways of healing, perinatal psychology and trauma healing. I support Perinatal Professionals and Parents to be trauma and wonder informed, prepared and sustained.
The Mother Path stretches back in time and out into the future. It is the foundation for our relationship with self-care, our mothers, our Mother Earth and our births, including those we experienced and those we participated in. It sets the stage for our fertility, our adoptions, our abortions, our miscarriages. It was and is present in our ancestors’ pregnancies, births, postpartum, and newborn imprints. And it is our original life pattern template that affects how we open or close to each moment. It radiates through our Mother Earth and beyond. We live in a culture that does not support or honor the relationships of this path, yet we are called to reconnect what has been disconnected because The Mother Path is the center of the Mandala of Human life. All our offerings are designed to nourish, strengthen and reconnect what needs to be connected on your mother path, individually and in community.
Some of my experiences that inform my work include: * Loss: a high risk pregnancy and still birth at 20 weeks
* The home-birth of my son
* 40 + year partnership with my beloved husband
* MA in Transpersonal Psychology from JFK
* Maternal Child public health nurse
* Student of a 2 year Cross Cultural Shamanic Training with Angeles Arrien, Phd
* Intern of Gayle Peterson PhD in Body Hypnosis for perinatal clients
* Perinatal Psychology training with Wendy McCarty PhD, Leah La Goy MFT, Sally Clark MFT, Anne Maiden Brown PhD
* Staff Educator with Marshall Rosenberg and Gil Lopez in non violent communication and mediations
* Trainer and Consultant for NY Presbyterian Colombian Perinatal Centers on Addressing Trauma Triggers for Staff and Patients.
* Developer of the Contra Costa County Perinatal Depression to Wellness Network which resulted in 20, 000 women a month receiving prenatal emotional support
* Developer of the Perinatal Integrative Health Program at Contra Costa County with education and support groups for three major clinics
* Staff Educator and Consultant in stress reduction, trauma informed care, trauma treatment for the Healthy Start Staff in Richmond and Pittsburg clinics
* Developer of the High Risk Pregnancy Stress Reduction group for Kaiser San Francisco
* Student and practioneer of Tibetan Buddhism for 20 years
* Student and practiooneer of the Cherokee Peacekeepers for 5 years * Student of zen and vipassana Buddhism for the last 30 years
