ACT for perinatal mental health
Using ACT to support parents through the challenges of the perinatal period
The perinatal period brings unique mental health challenges, from guilt, self-judgment, and identity shifts to stigma and practical barriers like childcare and feeding schedules. Many parents struggle to access timely psychological support, despite the lasting impact of perinatal mental health on both parent and child.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) offers a flexible, transdiagnostic approach that helps parents navigate distress, reconnect with their values, and find fulfilment in their parenting journey.
In this interactive workshop, you’ll learn practical strategies to:
- Support parents in coping with uncertainty, guilt, and self-judgment
- Use mindfulness to enhance connection with baby
- Help parents rediscover identity and values in early parenthood
- Explore the benefits of remote-delivered ACT for perinatal mental health
Through case discussions, video demonstrations, and experiential exercises, you’ll gain real-world tools to integrate ACT into your work with parents.
Background to the workshop
The perinatal period is a time of significant psychological, emotional, and identity shifts. Research shows that maternal mental health conditions can have long-term impacts not only on the parent but also on the child and wider family. Despite this, access to evidence-based psychological interventions remains limited—especially for moderate to severe mental health concerns.
Parents seeking support often face multiple barriers, including:
- Stigma and fear of judgment, particularly concerns about being seen as an unfit parent
- Practical challenges, such as childcare, feeding schedules, and time constraints
- Systemic barriers, including long waiting lists for disorder-specific treatments
ACT provides a transdiagnostic, flexible approach that helps parents navigate distress, reconnect with their values, and find fulfilment in their parenting journey. By focusing on psychological flexibility, ACT enables parents to respond more effectively to emotions, self-judgment, and identity shifts—even when life with a new baby feels overwhelming.
This workshop will explore how ACT can help parents manage uncertainty, strengthen their bond with their baby, and rediscover a sense of identity and purpose. It will also introduce emerging research on remote-delivered ACT for perinatal mental health, making psychological support more accessible for parents.
Led by Dr. Cerith Waters and Dr. Jennifer Berrett, specialists in perinatal mental health within the NHS and academia, this workshop draws on their extensive experience of delivering ACT face-to-face and remotely to support parents through pregnancy and early parenthood.
What you will gain from this workshop
Cerith and Jennifer will demonstrate how ACT can support parents to experience fulfilment in their parenting journey, particularly during pregnancy and the early years. Themes that will be discussed in the workshop include coping with the unpredictable nature of the perinatal period, parenting guilt, self-judgements, overwhelming emotions and loss of identity.
This workshop will give you practical, adaptable tools to use in your clinical practice, helping parents experience a more fulfilling and meaningful parenting journey.
By attending this workshop, you will:
- Gain a clearer understanding of how ACT can support parents struggling with mental health challenges in the perinatal period
- Learn practical ways to apply the ACT hexaflex to common difficulties such as self-judgment, guilt, and shifting identity
- Learn about the application of mindfulness in supporting connection with baby
- Learn how to support women to apply thought defusion in times of judgement and supporting the discovery of values when re-connecting with one’s identity.
- Discover how remote-delivered ACT interventions are being developed and used internationally in perinatal mental health
About this workshop
This workshop will be highly practical and interactive, using:
- Video demonstrations to show ACT in action
- Brief experiential exercises to help participants engage with ACT concepts
- Reflective discussions on systemic influences affecting parents’ mental health
- Case studies and real-world examples from clinical practice
- Research insights into the latest findings on remote-delivered ACT for perinatal mental health
The focus will be on how ACT can be adapted to support parents, particularly in pregnancy and the early parenting years. Participants will leave with actionable strategies to enhance their work in perinatal mental health services.
Who will benefit from this workshop?
This workshop would benefit any healthcare professional working with parents during the perinatal period and early years, including those who do not work directly in mental health services including health visitors.
It is ideal for:
- Psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists
- Midwives, perinatal nurses, and obstetricians
- Health visitors and family support workers
- Social workers and counsellors working with parents
- Any professional supporting maternal mental health and early parenting
Prerequisites
A basic understanding of ACT is recommended. If you’re new to ACT, we offer a free on-demand introduction to ACT workshop to help you prepare.
At the end of this 1.5 hour workshop you will be able to:
1) Describe how a transdiagnostic model like ACT can be helpful during the perinatal period, including acknowledgement of the current research exploring this.
2) Identify how remote-delivered ACT can overcome some of the challenges faced when providing psychological interventions in the perinatal period.
3) Select ACT techniques for use in the perinatal period, supporting both the mum’s mental health, and the mother and baby relationship.
APA psychologists: This program is sponsored by Contextual Consulting and is approved for 1.5 CE credits for psychologists.
Nationally certified counselors: This workshop is available for 1.5 credit hours. Contextual Consulting Ltd. has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7578.
To find out more, including attendance requirements and how to access your certificate, go to our continuing education information page.
If you have disability and require adjustments or accommodation, please email us at admin@contextualconsulting.co.uk to discuss your needs and we will do our best to help you.
Booking cancellation
The registration fee will be refunded minus a administration charge if cancellations are received at least two weeks before the workshop date.
Cancellations within two weeks of the event date are charged the full registration fee, other than in exceptional circumstances that can be verified.
Event cancellation
In the event of cancellation of the course outside of our control we will not be held accountable for travel and/or accommodation costs incurred. However, the workshop fees will be refunded.
All workshops will be subject to minimum delegate numbers being met; in the event that a workshop should be cancelled delegates will be given no less than 2 months’ notice.
Replacing delegates
If a delegate is unable to attend and a replacement is nominated there may be a charge depending on the individual circumstances, this will be advised at the time. Please contact the us to request a replacement of delegates at least a week before the workshop date.
Contextual Consulting is committed to the identification and resolution of potential conflicts of interest in the planning, promotion, delivery, and evaluation of continuing education. Potential conflicts of interest occur when an individual assumes a professional role in the planning, promotion, delivery, or evaluation of continuing education where personal, professional, legal, financial, or other interests could reasonably be expected to impair their objectivity, competence, or effectiveness.
There was no commercial support for this event. None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
Waters, C. S., Annear, B., Flockhart, G., Jones, I., Simmonds, J. R., Smith, S., Traylor, C., & Williams, J. F. (2020). Acceptance and commitment therapy for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders: A feasibility and proof of concept study. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(3), 515–533.