Powerful strategies and compassionate support for overcoming postpartum depression
Becoming a parent is a huge transition. For some, the mood swings, the pressures, and the anxiety can be intense and overwhelming. One in five women will develop postpartum depression (PPD) after pregnancy―so if you’re struggling with PPD, know you’re not alone. This depression workbook is designed to help you navigate the transition to becoming the healthy and happy parent you want to be.
This depression workbook is here to guide you on your journey, providing supportive strategies and tools grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)―proven to help you understand, cope with, and reduce your PPD symptoms. Discover common signs of PPD, what it is, and what you can do about it. Explore your thoughts, feelings, and relationships, plus self-care practices through a variety of practical and insightful exercises in this depression workbook.
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Nayeli Corona-Zitney –
I received an advanced copy of this book to review, and opinions expressed herein are my own.
The author of this book, Abigail Burd, is a Perinatal Mental Health Certified expert. The expertise she has gathered over the years of working in this filed is evident in this book. This workbook provides professional, expert information in a way that is easy to grasp. I encourage anyone who has postpartum depression or thinks that they may have it to read this book. It provides the reader with an understanding of what postpartum depression is and what the risk factors are. More importantly, it provides tips for the reader on how to manage the symptoms of postpartum depression, and also explains how these symptoms can also impact a partner.
I am a therapist who also works in this field and I will be recommending this workbook to expecting and new parents to help in their transition to parenthood.
HeHe Stewart, M.S. –
This book is incredible! It steps you through exactly what is ‘normal’ and expected in postpartum plus what to do if you find yourself in a space that is not expected. This workbook is filled with easy tools to incorporate throughout your day to help find strategies to be the healthiest, happiest version of you. I could go on and on about how amazing this workbook is, but I will leave it at this–it even shares how to navigate this space with your partner while supporting yourself, too. This book is a must-have for any new parent!
Caitlin Chapman –
As a therapist working in the maternal mental health field, I have been waiting for a workbook like this for some time. It strikes the perfect balance between being helpful to the new mother/parent by presenting information in a way that is easily digestible, while also acting as a sound clinical resource that I can use to inform my work with clients. The tone of this workbook is relatable and encouraging, and it also feels up-to-date with discussion of various sub-populations of parents, such as BIPOC and LGBTQ+. I found the section explaining Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, i.e. challenging negative thought patterns, especially accessible. I have already used this as a resource with clients, and I expect that this text will become a standard in the field. I wish that someone had given me a copy of this in my fourth trimester!
Ghada Osman –
As a psychotherapist with experience working in different settings with a variety of clients, I was delighted to be provided a copy of this book to review. I was looking forward to seeing what exercises and tools it provided for those struggling with Postpartum Depression (PPD)/ Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs). Having read through the book, which is rich in content while written in an easy-to-follow and engaging style, I definitely plan on recommending it to clients.
The Postpartum Depression Workbook is intended as both a quick fix in moments of crisis and as a comprehensive toolbox to be read and digested over a longer period of time. The book is not only for new parents, but also for those who are currently pregnant, trying to conceive, or past the first year of birthing. Well-organized and easy to navigate, it is divided into three parts. The first, “Understanding your Postpartum Depression” covers the common signs of PPD and their impact, and includes a PPD screening for readers. The second, “Tools and Strategies,” incorporates interactive tools to aid in understanding and moving through PPD symptoms, and is further split into color-coded subsections on strategies that help with the reader’s thoughts, feelings, relationships (especially with a co-parent), and self-care. The third section, “Postpartum Depression in Real Life,” responds to commonly asked questions that have frequently been posed to the author by her clients.
The main approach of the book is through the lens of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (aimed at raising awareness of inaccurate/ negative thinking and therefore changing responses in behavior and thought), alongside some deeper, self-exploration work. Framing from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy includes the identification of negative filters (e.g. all-or-nothing, catastrophizing, and overgeneralizing) and the incorporation of techniques such as GRAPES: Gentleness, Relaxation, Accomplishment, Pleasure, Exercise, Social for self-care. Especially valuable – in my opinion – exercises include a comparison of “me now” and “me before,” “break the spell” where readers are invited to deflate the power of fears by writing them down, and writing one’s reproductive story as imagined in the past and then one’s actual reproductive story. Particularly helpful behavioral suggestions include examples of how to find micromoments of mindfulness such as taking literally one minute to focus on the breath or using a favorite soap to wash hands.
The book does not shy away from bigger and more challenging topics that are typically swept under the rug. In the first two sections of the book, these include sex postpartum and a return to sex earlier than a person was ready in order to please a partner, and the challenge at times of engaging in nonsexual physical intimacy with a partner when a parent feels already “touched out” by cuddling a child. The book also notes the impact of a new baby on a non-birthing parent, whether that person is the partner of the birthing parent or a parent of a child that was birthed by someone outside of the family unit (e.g. an adoptive parent). In subtle, immediately relevant ways, the book also situates the discussion of birthing within a larger, societal context through invitations to subvert dominant paradigms, and through the recognition of systemic inequities such as the much higher rates of PPD and death from childbirth that result from direct and indirect chronic institutional racism.
In the third section, the book’s examination of topics that are less typically discussed focuses on some of the deeper fears raised by parents: lack of baby bonding, being the perfect parent, postpartum rage, desperation when it seems like things will never get better, challenges with producing enough milk, D-MER (dysphoric milk-ejection reflex, where a person feels distress rather than connection during breast feeding), pregnancy loss, pregnancy after loss, navigating “wine mom” culture for those in recovery, and challenges regarding work outside the home for those for whom that is relevant (loss of identity/ social connection through not going to work, guilt regarding not contributing financially, anxiety about returning to work, etc.). For each of these, the author gives a succinct yet thoughtful set of tools that normalize the thought or situation, and guide the reader to think about and respond to it differently.
While the focus of the book is clearly on PMADs, it includes tangible images, analogies, and exercises that would be beneficial in other areas of a reader’s life as well. For instance, there is a rich exploration of the little-discussed PPD symptom of anger that gives the effective analogy of the image of a funnel, a conversation about setting boundaries that utilizes the image of a door, and a reframe of viewing a challenging time in one’s life as a particular moment in a novel. The book also discusses myths and facts about medication, an examination that is useful both within the context of PMAD and beyond it.
The book closes with resources including support lines, expert medication advice, specialized resources (for anger, for partners, for specific populations such as BIPOC parents and LGBTQ+ parents, etc.), postpartum planning, perinatal loss, and informative Instagram accounts to follow. It also ends on a related note from the author: “Perinatal depression is not a personal failure. If anything, I see it as a societal failure to support new families” (p. 143). That conclusion is a reminder of all that is invaluable about this book. It is broad in scope and brimming with helpful exercises and tools, yet also provides the new parent time and time again with a gift that can be so easy to overlook: self-compassion.
– Ghada Osman, Ph.D., LMFT, Author of “Mental and Emotional Healing through Yoga: A Guiding Framework for Therapists & their Clients”