Notes from Elisa
Six minute read
Who I work with
Women carrying more than they ever expected to.
Most of the women I sit with are somewhere in one or more of these. They overlap, often. You don't need to know which one you're in.
i.
Perinatal & motherhood.
Pregnancy, postnatal, and the long after. The bit where you're meant to be glowing and you're actually falling apart. The miscarriage you were told to move on from. The stillbirth that changed everything. The postnatal fog nobody warned you about. Or just not recognising yourself anymore. None of that needs explaining.
PerinatalMotherhood
Read more →ii.
Anxiety & overwhelm.
You're up before everyone and already behind. The to-do list is running before you've had coffee. Your chest is tight, your patience is thin, and by the time you snap at someone you love, the guilt is instant. The 3am thinking. The mind that won't stop. The body that won't settle. You don't have to keep managing this alone.
Anxiety
Read more →iii.
Identity & transition.
You used to know who you were. Now you're not so sure. Maybe a relationship ended and took your sense of self with it. Maybe a career changed and left you questioning everything. Maybe you're grieving a version of your life that didn't work out. You don't have to go through this alone.
Identity
Read more →You don't need to arrive with the right words. Most people don't. We'll find them together, or we won't, and that's also useful.
— Elisa
About
I'm Elisa.
I'm originally from Salento, in southern Italy, and I work with women and mums across Australia — mostly on the parts of life that look fine from the outside but don't feel that way underneath. The slow grief inside good news. The postnatal anxiety you've gotten very good at hiding. A relationship, a career, or a sense of self that's quietly shifting.
As a perinatal counsellor, I sit with a lot of women in those stretches — many of them through my work with Red Nose. Online counselling means we can do that work from wherever you are, with the baby in your arms if you need.
ACA Registered Counsellor · Diploma of Counselling · Master of Counselling (in progress) · Red Nose trained · Sessions online, across Australia.
More about how I work →Specifically
If you came looking for a particular thing.
Perinatal counselling. Pregnancy anxiety. Postnatal anxiety. Postnatal depression. Birth trauma. Matrescence. The broader anxiety in motherhood that doesn't fit a tidy postnatal label. The slow identity work of becoming a mum. Each has its own page.
- Perinatal counselling →Pregnancy through the first year and beyond.
- Pregnancy anxiety →The worry that started before the baby arrived.
- Postnatal anxiety →When the worry doesn't switch off.
- Postnatal depression →When it isn't what you expected.
- Birth trauma →When the birth left a mark.
- Matrescence →The identity shift into motherhood.
- Anxiety in motherhood →Beyond the postnatal label.
- Counselling for mothers →For the in-between you can't quite name.
- How online sessions work →From your couch, with the baby in your arms.
Online counselling, in practice
Why online counselling actually suits motherhood.
All my sessions are online, held over Google Meet, fifty minutes long. Most of the women I see are mums in the middle of something hard — a pregnancy that's bringing more anxiety than they expected, a postnatal year that doesn't look like the brochure, a baby in their arms while they take the call. Online counselling isn't a workaround for that. It's the format that fits.
I've been doing this kind of work — including bereavement and perinatal support through Red Nose, Australia's leading organisation for stillbirth, miscarriage and infant loss — for years. Most of those conversations happened over a screen, not in a waiting room. Mothers don't always have the time, the childcare, or the energy to drive across the city. The screen is what makes counselling reachable.
Across Australia, online perinatal counselling has become the way most mums actually receive support. The research has caught up with that. For the conversational, relational work I do — for postnatal anxiety, postnatal depression, birth trauma, matrescence, and the slow identity work of becoming a mother — outcomes online are equivalent to outcomes in the same room. What you lose by not being in person, you gain back many times over by not having to leave home.
From my desk in Australia, I see mothers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, regional New South Wales, regional Queensland, the bush, the coast. The country is the room. As a perinatal counsellor working entirely online, I'm never more than a screen away.
Notes from Elisa
What I've been thinking about.
Thoughts on counselling, motherhood, and everything in between. Read what's useful, skip the rest.
Notes from Elisa
Eight minute read
Whenever you're ready
Booking is open.
A free fifteen-minute call to see whether we're a fit. Or step straight into a first session — whichever feels right.
Book a first conversation