Promoting Wellness for an Inclusive Perinatal Population: Strategies for Counselors

Abstract

The authors present wellness-supporting strategies for counselors working with anyone looking to add a child to their family. Current literature is largely heteronormative and cisnormative, with a predominant focus on mothers’ experiences, and still often limited in its consideration of multicultural factors and impacts across levels of intersectional wellness. Focusing on populations typically ignored in the literature, the authors present risk and protective factors associated with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and apply the socio-ecological model of mental health and well-being to demonstrate how counselors can use their own and their clients’ levels of influence to promote wellness.