Fiona Rogerson - Trauma and Perinatal Counsellor & Birth Educator, Perth

Fiona Rogerson - Trauma and Perinatal Counsellor & Birth Educator, Perth Specialist counselling and EMDR for birth trauma, perinatal trauma, PTSD & cPTSD. Perth + Aus-wide.

You might not agree, but these are my thoughts...Most parenting advice is built on one quiet assumption that a mothers b...
12/02/2026

You might not agree, but these are my thoughts...

Most parenting advice is built on one quiet assumption that a mothers body feels basically safe most of the time.

Safe to pause.
Safe to reflect.
Safe to choose a response instead of reacting.

BUT trauma changes how the nervous system reads the world.

If your body has learnt through birth, childhood, relationships, or medical experiences that you did not get a say, that your boundaries were not respected, or that you had to override yourself to get through something hard, parenting is not neutral. It can feel like pressure. Exposure. Loss of control. Urgency without escape.

And parenting is FULL of moments that mirror those exact sensations.
Noise. Touch. Demand. Unpredictability. Being needed when you have nothing left to give.

So when advice says, “Just stay calm.”
Or, “Just regulate first.”
Or, “Just take a breath.”
It can land like failure when your body is already in survival mode.
Because you CANNOT access calm when your nervous system is trying to keep you safe.
You cannot logic your way out of a trauma response.
And you cannot strategy your way into safety.

This is why traumatised parents often feel like parenting advice works for everyone else but not for them.

If this you right not, it's not because you're trying less. You're not doing it wrong.
It is because the advice is skipping the most important step, helping the body feel safe enough to choose differently.

When safety comes back online, parenting strategies suddenly make more sense.
Your nervous system is no longer fighting to protect you.

If you have ever felt like parenting advice works in theory but falls apart in real life, there is usually a reason.

My free guide, 7 Signs Birth Trauma Is Impacting Your Parenting, helps you quickly spot patterns you might not have linked back to birth or earlier experiences, so you can start joining the dots for yourself.

Comment PARENTING below and I will send it to you.

Not all trauma responses look like fear or collapse. Many look like coping too well.One of the hardest parts of postnata...
01/02/2026

Not all trauma responses look like fear or collapse. Many look like coping too well.

One of the hardest parts of postnatal trauma is how invisible it can become, even to the person living it. You might be functioning, ticking boxes, getting on with things. But underneath, your nervous system is stuck in survival mode, doing whatever it takes to avoid feeling that level of helplessness again.

That’s why so many mums come into counselling unsure if what they went through even “counts” as trauma. They’re not having flashbacks. They’re not falling apart. But they’re chronically tense, detached, overwhelmed by small disruptions, or panicked when things feel out of control.

These are adaptations.

And they make complete sense. It’s common for trauma to show up through the body, through parenting patterns, through habits that once helped you cope, but are now making daily life feel harder.

Understanding these responses for what they are is often the first step in moving forward. They're not weakness. Not personality flaws. Not overreacting. Just a nervous system trying to stay safe, after facing previous threat... even if the danger has passed.

If any of these responses feel familiar, you’re not broken. You’re responding in ways that once made perfect sense.

Ready to take the next step in moving forward? Head to the link in my bio to book your session.

Loneliness in motherhood isn’t always about being alone. It’s about feeling unseen.You can have people around you, a par...
29/01/2026

Loneliness in motherhood isn’t always about being alone. It’s about feeling unseen.

You can have people around you, a partner in the house, even a baby in your arms, and still feel profoundly disconnected.

Because what so many mothers we support are starved of after a traumatic birth isn’t company. It’s attunement.

That feeling of being noticed. Considered. Emotionally responded to.

And in the absence of that, it’s just easier to turn inward and start to question yourself. Especially when you’re watching other mums, online or in real life, who seem to be coping better, bonding faster, smiling more. Comparison quickly becomes self-judgement. “What’s wrong with me?” becomes the question that plays on repeat. And the isolation deepens.

Often, the groundwork for that loneliness is laid during birth itself... When your needs were minimised. When your preferences were overruled. When you were treated like a body, not a person. Those experiences send a clear message that your needs are secondary, and that your voice doesn’t matter.

So you begin parenting from that place. Doubting what you feel. Hiding what you need. Holding in the tears because “at least the baby is okay.”

And the world affirms it. The expectations of early motherhood are built around sacrifice and silence. Around performing strength, even when you’re running on empty.

This is the kind of loneliness that cuts deep, not because you're physically alone, but because so many parts of your experience have gone unseen, invalidated or pushed aside.

Did you feel that too?

If it resonates, drop a ❤️ in the comments below.

Out of ideas of how to save your relationship?Most couples aren’t failing. They’re just unsupported in the hardest trans...
28/01/2026

Out of ideas of how to save your relationship?

Most couples aren’t failing. They’re just unsupported in the hardest transition of their lives.

Because nothing quite prepares you for how parenthood changes the ground beneath your relationship. The pressure, the resentment, the constant background noise of exhaustion... it all adds up. And slowly, the version of “us” you knew becomes harder to recognise.

This is about how much load your relationship has had to carry without enough room to process any of it, not about how much you love each other.

You might be interpreting the distance as disconnection, when really it’s depletion. You might be assuming the arguments mean something is broken, when really, they’re a signal that something deeper needs tending.

So often in trauma work, I see that conflict isn’t always a sign of rupture. Sometimes it’s a scrambled attempt at reconnection, through frustration, protest, or sheer survival mode. The goal isn’t to fix the relationship in one conversation. It’s to slow the cycle down enough that both people can come back into view again.

If you’re at the point where it feels like nothing is working, that might be the clearest sign that support isn’t just helpful, it’s necessary.

Details are in the link in my bio.

Another hard truth?Time alone doesn’t resolve trauma.Neither does gratitude.Neither does “getting on with it.”Birth trau...
22/01/2026

Another hard truth?
Time alone doesn’t resolve trauma.
Neither does gratitude.
Neither does “getting on with it.”

Birth trauma often shows up after the birth, once the body has space to register what it went through.

That’s why the nights feel harder.
Why unpredictability feels intolerable.
Why closeness can feel threatening.
Why you can want space and connection at the same time.
Why your reactions don’t match how much you love your baby.

Another uncomfortable truth is that many women are given coping tools for something that actually needs processing.

You’re taught how to manage the symptoms, not resolve the cause.

And here’s the truth no one says clearly enough.
These responses make sense.
They’re logical outcomes of a nervous system that lost safety and control.
They’re not personality traits.
They’re not parenting styles.
And they’re not something you just have to live with.

The hardest truth of all is this.
If trauma isn’t addressed, it doesn’t disappear.
It simply changes shape.

But none of this has to continue.

Specialist perinatal trauma support isn’t about reliving your birth or forcing yourself to talk it through. It’s about helping your body process what it couldn’t at the time, so it no longer has to stay on high alert.

If you recognised yourself here, this doesn’t have to be your normal.

Head to the link my bio, book in a session, and we can help you find your light again.

If you work in maternity care, please keep reading…
Most clinicians are familiar with the idea of being trauma-informed....
21/01/2026

If you work in maternity care, please keep reading…

Most clinicians are familiar with the idea of being trauma-informed. Far fewer have been supported to practise trauma-responsive care, particularly in the hours and days after birth.

From a nervous system perspective, the post-birth period is not neutral. Physiologically and neurologically, the body often remains in a heightened state. Memory is still consolidating. Meaning is still being assigned. Safety is still being assessed.

This is why timing matters as much as intention.

When fear or near-miss language is introduced after birth, even retrospectively, it can be encoded as ongoing threat rather than resolved risk. The nervous system does not register that the danger has passed. Instead, it learns that something terrible almost happened and may still need monitoring.

Over time, this can show up as hypervigilance, intrusive replay, difficulty trusting the body, fear in future pregnancies, or a persistent sense that birth is unsafe, even when clinical outcomes were stable.

Trauma-responsive care invites a different way of thinking.

Instead of asking, “Was I being honest?”
It asks, “Who is this information for right now?”

Instead of asking, “The birth is over, so can I say this?”
It asks, “Has her nervous system had time to find safety?”

Instead of asking, “I need to process this.”
It asks, “Where is the safest place for that processing to happen?”

This shift, from intention to timing, is central to trauma-responsive care. It recognises that the immediate post-birth period is a critical window for containment, not clinician processing.

This is one of the core frameworks we explore in Rethinking Trauma, moving beyond awareness into practical, nervous-system-responsive care.

Rethinking Trauma 2026 dates are now open, with the first training running in March. I would genuinely love to have you there. This is where we move beyond good intentions and start making real change.

Because reducing birth trauma is not only about what happens during birth.
It is also about how the experience is held afterwards.

Head to the link in my bio to join.

You expected hard moments. But not this kind of hard.Not the rage and shouting and yelling over something so tiny.Not th...
18/01/2026

You expected hard moments. But not this kind of hard.

Not the rage and shouting and yelling over something so tiny.
Not the way your chest tightens as your child cries and you instantly freeze.
Not the guilt that sweeps in so quickly, it takes your breath away.

When parenting feels like this, it’s easy to wonder what’s wrong with you. But what if the struggle isn’t about your capacity as a mum, what if it’s about what your nervous system has been through?

I’ve seen it so often in my counselling room... mums who feel constantly anxious, disconnected, reactive, and on edge. They’re not failing at parenting, they're carrying unresolved birth trauma.

Birth trauma doesn’t always look obvious from the outside. You might have been told your birth was 'medically fine' or that 'nothing went wrong'. But your body remembers how frightening, disempowering, or out of control it felt. And that lingering imprint of trauma can quietly shape how you show up as a parent.

That’s why I created a free guide that unpacks the hidden links between birth trauma and parenting struggles. It’s for the mums who wonder why it feels so hard to stay patient, present or connected, and what they can do about it.

Click the link in my bio to get your copy of 7 Signs Your Birth Trauma Is Impacting Your Parenting. It’s a gentle starting point if you’ve ever wondered, why does this feel so much harder than I thought it would?

It’s hard to move forward from a birth where you felt invisible.So many mums tell me that they were made to feel small a...
11/01/2026

It’s hard to move forward from a birth where you felt invisible.

So many mums tell me that they were made to feel small and insignificant. Like they didn’t matter. No one was acknowledging them or listening to them, at a time where they should’ve been supported and empowered.

And when that feeling of insignificance is experienced hand in hand with fear and lost control, it doesn’t just go away once the baby arrives. It shows up later, sometimes when you least expect it… in self-doubt, in people-pleasing, in struggling to ask for help, or in feeling like you’re constantly walking on eggshells around others.

It can leave you questioning yourself in motherhood, wondering if you’re overreacting, being too sensitive, or just not cut out for this. You might find yourself trying to keep the peace, ignoring your own needs, or finding it hard to trust anyone to really support you.

What you're experiencing makes sense. When your voice has been dismissed or your choices taken away, your nervous system learns that speaking up might not be safe. That staying small feels safer than the risk of being ignored or shut down again.

That’s why healing from birth trauma isn’t just about making peace with the past. It’s about recognising how that past might still be showing up now... in your parenting, your relationships, your sense of self... and learning how to come back to your own voice, your own worth, and your own power.

Therapies like EMDR can support you to process what happened in a way that feels safe and contained, so your experience no longer hijacks your body or your sense of self.

Instead of staying stuck in fight, flight or freeze, you start to notice more choice. More clarity. More ability to respond, rather than react. We look at how those patterns are still playing out now, especially in motherhood, and work together to shift them gently.

If you're ready to reconnect with your voice, send me a DM. I'd love to support you.

Anger is one of the emotions that brings many couples into counselling, especially in the early months of parenting, or ...
09/01/2026

Anger is one of the emotions that brings many couples into counselling, especially in the early months of parenting, or after a difficult or traumatic birth.

It often shows up in the relationship when things feel stretched or disconnected. Snapping over something small. Arguments that escalate quickly. The sense that one or both of you are always on edge. Resentment that simmers and festers.

But in couples counselling we almost always find that the anger is pointing to something deeper. Because anger rarely stands alone, it’s usually protecting something underneath.

That might be grief about how the birth unfolded. Resentment about who was (or wasn’t) there for you. Loneliness that’s built up slowly. Or the exhaustion of carrying the mental load without feeling seen.

Anger can come from a place of protest, it lets us know that something matters, that something hurts, or that something isn’t working. It’s often more about protection than aggression.

The goal isn’t to get rid of anger, but to understand what it’s trying to say. When we can explore what’s underneath it, there’s often more space for connection, for repair, and for conversations that actually go somewhere.

If you’ve noticed anger showing up more in your relationship since becoming a parent, and you’re not sure what to do with it, shoot me a DM. We support individuals and couples to understand what’s really going on underneath the reaction so that you can both respond in ways that feel more aligned, more connected, and less reactive, even when things are hard.

The mums who walk into my counselling room often don’t realise they’re carrying trauma.They just know they don’t feel li...
06/01/2026

The mums who walk into my counselling room often don’t realise they’re carrying trauma.
They just know they don’t feel like themselves anymore.

Sometimes they’re anxious but hiding it well. Sometimes they’re numb and keeping busy. Sometimes they’re doing everything ‘right’ but still feel off, angry, flat, or overwhelmed.

After years of sitting with women in the aftermath of hard births, one thing is clear to me.. trauma doesn’t always look how we expect it to. It’s not always flashbacks or panic. Sometimes it’s losing trust in your body. Sometimes it's feeling like your reactions don’t make sense. Sometimes it's not feeling at all.

These are truths I’ve learned from years of walking alongside mums in birth trauma recovery, not from textbooks, but from the real-life patterns that show up in my counselling room again and again.

If you’ve been wondering why you still don’t feel okay, even when things look fine on the outside, these truths might help put language to what you’ve been holding.

Let me know which one lands for you.

2025 wrap up!1. January. My year started with the trip of a lifetime… 3 months, 14 flights, 6 countries. Kicking off wit...
31/12/2025

2025 wrap up!

1. January. My year started with the trip of a lifetime… 3 months, 14 flights, 6 countries. Kicking off with India, absolute sensory overwhelm! The highlight of the entire 3 months was hands down the Taj Mahal. Absolutely incredible.

2/3. February. From India we headed to Thailand, then to Cambodia, where we celebrated our daughter turning 18 🎉 Cambodia is also where my heart was crushed when she made the very brave decision to fly home solo mid-trip as she had been accepted into university and couldn’t delay the start 🥹

4/5. March. Vietnam, Japan, Bali. Vietnam was my top pick, Japan my last. Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour was an absolute highlight.

6/7. April. We brought this sweet boy home from 🥰 A young Amstaff pup who was waiting patiently for his forever home.

8. May. Lots of early 5am walks, which has been so good for Dan and I to connect amongst the chaos.

9. June. June was also about work… knuckling down in with the launch of my other business, so it was head down for a good few weeks.

10. July. Launch month, so again, buried in the juggle!

11/12. August. Our River turned 1! And we celebrated with his first trip away in Vinny.

13/14. September. Another trip to Dogs Refuge Home and this boy stole our hearts. A 2 year old American Bulldog. Underweight, wounds on his legs, and frightened of loud noises and anything that resembles a stick or pole. September was all about making him feel safe in his new home with us.

15. October. We said goodbye to Caroline as she left for maternity leave. She is so missed, but we know she’s all loved up right now with her sweet baby boy. We also welcome Britt to our team, and absolutely love having her with us.

16. November. Dan and I headed to Newcastle where I was invited to speak at the 2025 CAPEA conference. We had the BEST time there!

17/18/19. December. Elfie Evergreen came to visit, and luckily my 13yo took over the job. Not always appropriately 🫣😂 And FRPTC also said goodbye to Kaylee who has also headed off on mat leave. We’ve welcomed Renee to take over the reigns!
And finally, rounding off another incredible year adventuring with my crew 💛

Talking about it helps. But your body still reacts like it’s happening all over again. And that’s where EMDR comes in.Fo...
30/12/2025

Talking about it helps. But your body still reacts like it’s happening all over again. And that’s where EMDR comes in.

For many women recovering from birth trauma or medical trauma, logic and emotion feel out of step. You *know* you made it through. You *know* you're safe now. But your body doesn’t always agree. A sudden noise, a medical appointment, parenting moments that feel out of your control, even being touched unexpectedly can send you into a wave of panic, shutdown or overwhelm... like it all just happened moments ago.

This is your nervous system doing what it’s designed to do... protect you. When a traumatic experience doesn’t get fully processed, fragments of it (think sensations, images, and beliefs) get stored as if they still belong in the present. The nervous system stays alert, scanning for anything that feels even slightly similar. And it reacts fast, often without conscious awareness.

EMDR therapy supports the brain and body to complete what couldn’t be finished at the time. It helps reprocess those 'stuck' fragments so that the memory becomes just that, a memory. It loses its charge. It no longer drives emotional reactivity or physical symptoms in the here and now.

This is what integration really means. The experience is still part of your story, but it stops taking over the moment. You feel more grounded. More able to respond, rather than react. More like yourself again.

If EMDR is something you’ve been curious about, or if talking hasn’t shifted the way your body keeps holding the trauma, this might be a next step worth exploring.

Learn more via the link to my website in my bio or drop me a question below👇🏽

Address

6/640 Beeliar Drive, Success
Perth, WA
6164

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+61402017425

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Who is Fiona Rogerson?

Thank you for being here. My work has developed from a culmination of my own personal experiences of birth and motherhood (which included secondary infertility, IVF, pregnancy loss, instrumental birth, postnatal depression and breastfeeding struggles, but ultimately beautiful positive birth) together with what I witnessed to be similar experiences of other mothers through my initial work as a professional pregnancy and birth photographer which first began in 2009, together with my work as a birth/postnatal doula and antenatal educator. What I found to be a crucial but missing element for the parents I worked with, and for myself as well, was genuine, professional support that could help them navigate perhaps the most intense phase of their life... their perinatal period.

Through my counselling I provide a safe, supportive space for mothers and fathers to feel validated and fully heard, unravel and identify confusing and troubling thoughts and emotions, find clarity among their feelings, and discover strategies and tools to move forward toward achieving fulfillment and happiness. I provide confidential support in all areas of perinatal difficulties for women and men, including birth trauma and debriefing, pre and postnatal anxiety, low-self-esteem, loss of identity, fertility, unplanned pregnancy, and grief and loss.

Dare to walk a different path. I will light your way.