Laura Shtaingos - West Kent Counsellor

02/12/2025

What a month of endings! They are always so beautiful, so sad, but so full of hope and pride and wonder.

This marks the end of 5 years in private practice, and 8 years since the start of my counselling training. It’s certainly not the end of me supporting parents therapeutically though.

With all endings come new beginnings… looking forwards to what comes next 🤗

27/11/2025

In building empathy for our children’s feelings and co-regulating with them, we often learn how to do this for ourselves too 🥰

23/11/2025

Such a fascinating article in Scientific American by Anthony Vaccaro, a neuroscientist at the University of Carolina.

This work was focused on dads and showed how important finding nearing is in coping with the moment to moment challenges of parenthood. Finding parenthood difficult in the day-to-day does not mean that we cannot find joy Hope wonder and meaning in the experience overall.

This is so often one of the very important tasks of therapy. Developing a narrative around our individual stories of parenthood. Acceptance of the challenges we face and finding meaning within them.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-neuroscience-behind-the-parenting-paradox-of-happiness/

24/06/2025

How refreshing was it to see Emma Beddington write about gender inequality in home working?

I’ve been thinking recently about the myriad ways that motherhood impacts on our place in the world and our ability to claim what we need.

So many of us, who learned the precious skill of being instantly interruptible for our babies, work from home in an instantly interruptible way. It makes our work so much harder! Not to mention frustrating…

What small changes can we each make in our homes to lay boundaries to our time and our space? How might this differently portray the value of our time to the world?

This is hard work! It’s not just in our own heads but in the air we breathe and the water we drink, it’s all around us.

This cultural change is activism and it’s inner work. Viva la resistance 💪❤️

15/05/2025

This looks great 🙏🏼

Parenting is never easy, but for those who have experienced difficult or traumatic childhoods, it can bring unique challenges, including the difficulty of breaking cycles of trauma.

How do you navigate triggers, build secure attachments, and ensure your child feels safe, loved, and understood—especially if those things were missing from your own early years?

This online workshop, in collaboration with Seed Talks, explores how past experiences shape parenting and how to break cycles of trauma for the next generation.

🔹 Monday, June 9
🔹6:30 - 8:30pm
🔹Online, via Zoom
🔹Tickets available from Seed Talks: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/parenting-after-trauma-workshop-tickets-1317444545099?msockid=21706882af7569dc31367d22ae95680d

Whether you’re a parent, expectant parent, or professional supporting families, this Seed Talk offers valuable guidance in creating a nurturing and secure environment for children.

12/05/2025

Regulating your nervous system as a new parent doesn’t need to be complicated. I’m a huge advocate of meditations and visualisation, but sometimes it can simply noticing the beauty in our natural environment.

Leaves unfurling and flowers blooming are always a regular reminder to me to breathe and to pause. I hope you can find some beauty and drink it in today. ❤️

02/05/2025

Power Hours are renowned for getting stuff done. Set a date, commit to it, and focus for a short period on a painful task that benefits from advance planning each year!

Even better, hack into some body-doubling and a bit of solidarity from everyone else doing the same thing.

I'll also share my key summer holiday planning resources and we'll collaborate and learn from each other.

Book in on Eventbrite for a donation of your choosing https://summer-holiday-power-hour.eventbrite.co.uk (link in bio)

All proceeds to Baby Umbrella Charity (registered charity number 1190745) - supporting new families in West Kent.

Let's do it!

24/04/2025

I’ve always been obsessed by women’s health issues and been meaning to up my knowledge on perimenopause for some time.

With many of us having children later, the perinatal phase and perimenopause are coming closer and closer together. And - newsflash - our hormones are all over the place during both of these times. The impact on mental health and wellbeing can be significant ❤️

Loving Louise Newson’s books. I couldn’t decide which one to buy so I got them both 😂

Tell me your most mind blowing menopause facts? I never knew worsening PMS could be a leading indicator!

25/03/2025

Delighted to share this wonderful conversation I had with Dr Tara George, a GP and medical educator with a perinatal mental health specialism.

As she says below, this novel is a challenging read. It very viscerally brings to life feelings of isolation in early motherhood, the trapped-ness mothers can sometimes feel, and the difficulties of coming to terms with inequality in motherhood.

This conversation might be a good way to dip your toe in if you’re curious about this stunning novel. I’d love to hear your thoughts ❤️

Posted •

This is the last episode in season eight of the podcast. What a season we’ve had, finishing off with discussion of Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy. I’m delighted to welcome Laura Shtaingos to the podcast today. Laura wears a number of hats, mostly working within the perinatal mental health space. And it was really, really good to be talking to her about Claire Kilroy’s extraordinary, raw novel. which I think brings up lots of themes very pertinent for anybody who is looking after young parents, parents of small children, and looking after children, recognising that children do not exist in a vacuum.

Listen here: https://bedsidereading.buzzsprout.com/1880290/episodes/16718474-soldier-sailor

I would say if you are a new parent yourself and really struggling, this book might be a big challenge. It might be one where you really feel seen, heard and normalised or it might be quite traumatic and quite triggering. So I think it needs to come with a bit of a warning, but it was absolutely wonderful to welcome Laura today and really to think about this novel and what we can take away from it.




22/02/2025

My inner critic was working overtime for a few days after this podcast recording.

I’m often pulled to say the things that I feel need to be said, perhaps the things that other people might shy away from. But this comes with a cost, and sometimes I need a period of retreat and reflection afterwards.

It’s so similar to the work I often do with clients where one week we might have a breakthrough or a realisation which shifts so much. And the shifts take a while to settle. In between there’s often a period of extreme discomfort, shifting sands, new perceptions. It takes so much energy.

Just sending love to any of you out there who are, in their own imperfect ways, trying to make a change, trying to shift perceptions, trying to change behaviours, trying to make this world a better place to live in. Solidarity to you.

PS the podcast will land in late March and I may crawl under a rock for a few weeks!

11/01/2025

I ripped through this book in just a few days. Could not put it down. Claire Kilroy uses a poetic voice to immerse the reader in one mother’s all consuming, isolating and sanity-bending experience of early motherhood.

So many of us will recognise familiar thoughts and feelings in here. The sense of being watched and judged. The worries of not knowing what we are doing. The sheer dislocation of this whole new existence, our old lives and rhythms inaccessible. The love and fierce protectiveness. The panic when our kids are mysteriously violently unwell. The sudden dropping of the veil of equality. The permanence and impermanence of it all.

So many ambivalent mixed up feelings. No time to think. And the structure and prose of this book FEELS like that. I got such a visceral sense of that time.

What a book. Read it ❤️

24/12/2024

The pressures and mental load that so often falls to the mothers in our society can be a bit of a boiling pot at this time of year.
Add to that the heavy emotional labour of combining small children, extreme excitement, and different generations across multiple family units, it’s no wonder that many of us are feeling the pressure at this time of year.
If you need space to debrief and recover, I’m happy to offer ad-hoc sessions in January. Just get in touch.