Rising Stars: Meet Estefania Gonzalez of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Estefania Gonzalez.

Hi Estefania, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am at a point in my life where I can truly appreciate all the paths that have led me to where I am today. Today I find myself loving what I do. I am happily married, and a mother of two active fun-loving young boys. I own my own private practice where I specialize in trauma and supporting postpartum mothers and parents. To top it all off, I teach Parent & Me Classes facilitating parents in building their community and providing guidance in their parenting journey.

Prior to pursuing my Master’s degree, I worked as a kindergarten teacher with Teach For America. I learned a lot from that experience, gained tons of respect for teachers, but mostly I learned this was not the job for me. From here, I took a couple of turns before I went back to school and earned my Masters in Social Work to finally carve my path to becoming the therapist I’ve always wanted to be.

In my first job out of graduate school, I worked with the early intervention department in a community mental health setting supporting 0-5 years old and their families in South LA. After teaching, I recognized that I didn’t want to help kids with their academic learning, but rather help them with their social-emotional growth.

As I worked in this position, I soon realized that to achieve the biggest change with the kiddos I had to get the buy-in from the parents. I learned that teaching the skills to the parents and caregivers in how to best support their kids was the key to making a lasting difference. This led me to want to work with parents. I became trained in various therapeutic modalities that require parents’ participation. I then decided to focus on working with Postpartum women and really honed in on supporting mothers and parents in that first year of parenthood. The ironic part of this career path is that up until this point I wasn’t a parent, yet. I learned a lot of valuable skills on how to support parents, children, families, but in hindsight I still had so much to learn to really make a significant difference with this population.

Cut to my journey into parenthood, I became a mother in November of 2019 when my oldest son was born, right before the pandemic. I had a difficult birth and my son was in the NICU and I left the hospital without him. As many parents know, this is an awful feeling. I’m fortunate that he is a healthy boy now but this doesn’t negate the high and lows of the journey here. I suffered from Postpartum depression and anxiety, and even Postpartum PTSD. The first few months of my child’s life I felt disconnected from him. I felt numb. Mind you, I was trained in how to recognize perinatal mental health issues and yet it was so hard to admit when I was in it. Fortunately, I had loved ones who helped me realize it was time to seek help.

Becoming a parent during the pandemic was challenging, as those who experienced it know. A time when you expect your “village” to show up and help, one was met with fear and so many unknowns of how to navigate a world where interacting with others could potentially lead to death!? My postpartum anxiety was through the roof. I decided to not return to work as it required me to do in-home appointments and with a baby at home and the Covid Pandemic, I opted to stay home instead. The first year of parenthood in a pandemic was so hard for so many reasons and I wish I had a community who understood my struggles, and acknowledged what so many parents were experiencing in isolation. I had started to venture out and join parent and me groups right before the pandemic started, but then the world shut down.

What helped my family and I in this difficult time was therapy. This was a transformative experience for myself personally and professionally. I evolved as a person. I have attended therapy in the past, but this experience was unlike any other I had before. I did EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy) with a trained Perinatal Mental Health Specialist, and WOW! Seriously, I had heard about EMDR Therapy in school, but I hadn’t experienced it until my own therapy processing my birth experience and addressing intergenerational wounds.

I value my experience with EMDR Therapy as a client because I can relate to what my clients experience during the reprocessing. It can be hard to understand if you haven’t gone through it yourself. I remember feeling like my brain was firing rapidly and making connections that helped me see things in a whole new perspective. The way our brain works is fascinating. The way I like to describe EMDR Therapy to my clients is to begin by stating that our brain is so powerful that when we feel threatened it does whatever it needs to do to protect ourselves. Our protective mechanisms are so useful when we need it, but what happens is that over time when the threat is no longer there, our protective mechanisms can get in the way of our healing. So with EMDR Therapy a therapist guides the client to identify a negative belief they have and past memories that are connected to that negative belief and provides an opportunity for our brain to reconsider a new perspective that is more adaptive given all the information at hand now. In addition, EMDR Therapy helps desensitize a negative memory so it doesn’t have the same activation charge it once had before. It does all this with bilateral stimulation usually with having the client follow a light, or a small ball on a screen (if virtual) going side to side while focusing on the target memory. There are other types of bilateral stimulation that can be utilized as well. It can be more intense than traditional talk therapy, but it can also be very efficient and effective. EMDR Therapy is more complex than this brief explanation but I do think this description can provide a glimpse to the process.

After my first EMDR Therapy session as a client, I knew I wanted to be trained in this to further support my clients in my professional work. That’s what I did, I became an EMDR certified therapist trained in the Somatic and Attachment Focused EMDR Therapy. I now offer EMDR Therapy to my clients and guide them in their own healing journeys where they uncover their own solutions.

All this to say, all my experience has led me to this point in my career. After I left my community mental health job, I eventually joined a private practice group called EMDR and Trauma Therapy, which taught me the ins and outs of private practice and further strengthened my EMDR Therapy skills. It was such an empowering place to work and grow, especially because it mainly served the Latinx population.

At the same time, I was connected to another opportunity to work as a Parent and Me Educator at The Wright Mommy and Me, where I was able to further my career in helping parents navigate their first year of Parenthood. It has been healing serving in this role as I help parents understand how to best support their child with age-appropriate and developmental expectations with research backed practices and information. I facilitate community building among parents while providing them with tools to build their parenting self-confidence. The Wright Mommy and Me is founded by Julie Wright, co-author of “The Happy Sleeper”, and she created the content and curriculum for the Parent & Me classes. The Wright Mommy and Me is offered in two locations: Sherman Oaks and Santa Monica. My number one recommendation to new parents is to join a local parent and me class as it has so many benefits for parents.

Typically, Mommy and Me classes have been primarily attended by mothers and babies. However, there has been an increase in fathers and partners attending these classes more and more. I am lucky to teach weekend classes where typically both parents are in attendance, and so I have had the privilege of seeing families come in with the babies who are around 8 weeks old and seeing them grow and learn over the first year of their child’s life. These classes become a weekly reset where parents can reflect, learn, and bond with each other. I also connect with each family and it is a bittersweet goodbye when the last series ends. Each series is 8 weeks long and there are 5 series over the course of the first year of their baby’s life.

After a few years of doing Mommy and Me classes, I finally joined one as a participant when I had my second child. I participated in the Second Time Mommy and Me class at The Family Room where I met wonderful mothers and finally was able to experience that community building of my own that I yearned for after having my first child. It was refreshing to make mom friends that also had kids with similar age gaps, to the point that many of our first born children became friends with each other ,while our babies grew up with one another. Through this experience, I was afforded another opportunity in being able to join The Family Room team and teach Parent and Me classes with them. If you are in the Pasadena/San Marino or Toluca Lake area, The Family Room offers so many community based classes to bring families together from Parent and Me, to music class, to birthing prep classes, lactation consultation, to free drop-in play groups and story time, and much more.

I now teach several Parent and Me classes between The Wright Mommy and Me, and The Family Room. I own my private practice where I get to provide that one-on-one support and utilize EMDR Therapy to support women, mothers, and parents learn more adaptive coping skills to foster healthier family dynamics. In both my work with therapy and in the Parent and Me classes, I hope to provide the support I once sought and be able to make a positive impact in the lives of the families I work with. I am still growing and learning every day and I am humbled by the opportunities I have had that have helped me get to this point in my life.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, it hasn’t been a smooth road, but that’s what makes it worthwhile. The struggles are what help us grow and find our passion. For me, the struggles came when I had to do something I felt I had no idea what I was doing at first. I struggled as a Kindergarten teacher, then I struggled supporting 0-5 year olds even though I loved providing therapy, it took me some time before I made sense of how to best support them. Then when I became a mother and struggled to enjoy it, I felt like I must be doing something wrong. In hindsight, I can now reflect on all the factors that contributed to my postpartum challenges, such as lack of support, breastfeeding issues, a pandemic, identity loss, intense political conflict with loved ones, systemic issues, patriarchy, the list could go on. However, these challenges are what have helped me appreciate my experiences so I can support others navigating such a vulnerable season of life.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in perinatal mental health and trauma supporting mothers and parents in pregnancy, postpartum and beyond. I own my own private practice where I get to provide that one-on-one support and utilize EMDR Therapy to support women, mothers, and parents learn more adaptive coping skills to foster healthier family dynamics. I facilitate several Parent and Me classes between The Wright Mommy and Me, and The Family Room where I get to nurture community building amongst families and teach research-based topics that are relevant to the age of the baby. I love that I can support parents in their adjustment to parenthood in a judgement-free space. I am proud to bring my personal touch to both the therapy room and the parent and me classes in that I try to bring the balance of what research says and the reality of being a parent. The reality is there is not one right way to parent. There are so many ways to be a good one. It’s just about filtering through all the well-intended parenting advice and research, and personalizing it to fit each families’ needs.

How do you think about luck?
I have come to agree with the saying, “Good luck is when preparation meets opportunity”. The good luck I have had are all the doors that have opened for me along the way that I didn’t realize I wanted to walk through until I peeked in. I remember being hesitant to apply to the private practice group because I had been out of the field for a period of time when I became a mother, but I bet on myself to see what could come of it. Then I was hesitant to interview for the Parent and Me classes because I didn’t know how I would balance part time work with a growing family. Yet, when I did the interview it became apparent that I was meant for this role. Then I was hesitant to start my own private practice, until I finally stopped making excuses and took the leap of faith. I don’t think I have had bad luck but rather I made choices that helped me grow to find what I did want to do with my life and confirm what I didn’t want to do. Perspective and reframe really can make a difference in how you see your story. I know, such a therapist response.

Pricing:

• Individual Therapy: $175
• In-Network with: Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California, Quest Behavioral Health

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @estefanialcsw
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/estefania-gonzalez-6a2b4857/
• Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/estefania-gonzalez-pasadena-ca/1416614