Laura Ruaro

Dr. Laura Ruaro integrates psychoanalytic psychotherapy and EMDR. Her specialties include perinatal psychology (including pre-postpartum mood disorders and infertility), couple therapy, and childhood trauma. She also provides psychotherapy in the Italian language. Dr Laura Ruaro practices an experiential and in-depth form of therapy focused on feelings, understanding the unconscious, and resolving developmental blocks and attachment insecurities. Dr Laura Ruaro is passionate about supporting mothers as a way to foster mental health in future generations. My background includes work in a Perinatal Mental Health team, research/examination of the experiences of therapy of mothers who suffered postpartum depression, and ongoing training and conferences in maternal mental health. Becoming a mother entails a major psychological shift in the mother's identity and role in society. Often mothers experience a sense of loss of their previous selves. The narratives of motherhood present in Western society create stressful and unrealistic expectations on mothers and are often detrimental to mothers' sense of power and identity. Additionally, the transition to motherhood often brings to awareness unprocessed early, sometimes inter-generational, trauma. Talking through these difficult psychological challenges can promote mental health in the mother and in the baby and prevent inter-generational transmission of trauma. Dr Laura Ruaro also see the infertility treatment journey as part of the perinatal journey of becoming a mother. People receiving infertility treatment often experience shame and social isolation and have to work through multiple losses that can trigger symptoms of depression. Psychotherapy can help mitigate the extreme stress of the infertility journey by providing a centering and empowering space and can catalyze stress and grief towards a deep healing process.