Our Story
Nurture Geelong was born from a shared desire to create something different: a specialist mental health space where the experience of becoming a parent is understood in its entirety. Sophie and Lizzy were both driven by their professional experiences supporting infants, parents and families, as well as their own experiences of Matrescence—the profound psychological, relational and identity shift that comes with becoming a parent.
What makes Nurture Geelong different is that pregnancy, birth, postpartum and early parenting are not simply areas we work in; they are the centre of what we do. Our practice is grounded in specialist understanding of this unique life stage and the way it can affect identity, relationships, attachment, family dynamics and mental health. We recognise that experiences that may be considered ‘normal’ in this period can still feel deeply difficult for an individual, while also understanding when symptoms move beyond expected adjustment and require more specialised clinical support.
What shapes our work
Our approach has been shaped by a combination of professional training, clinical experience, thinkers and theories that have most influenced how we understand parents and families. Lizzy’s training and work as a Clinical Family Therapist has strongly shaped our belief in looking beyond the individual to understand the family and relational context around them. This is grounded in Bowlby’s foundational idea that “there is no such thing as a baby, there is a baby and someone”, a reminder that the wellbeing of a parent and child cannot be understood in isolation.
For Sophie, her foundations in Sociology and extensive training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy have come together to shape a way of understanding parenthood that considers both the world around us and the inner world we carry with us. Her sociological training brought an understanding of the broader social and cultural forces that shape the experience of becoming a parent, including the expectations, pressures and systems that influence how we experience mothering and parenthood. Her training in psychodynamic psychotherapy has deepened this understanding, particularly the way becoming a parent can bring unconscious, relational and intergenerational experiences to the surface. Concepts such as ‘ghosts in the nursery’ have been particularly influential, alongside Lucy Jones’ description in Matrescence that “impressions from the past are unlocked.”
These influences, alongside our ongoing professional learning and clinical experience, have shaped a practice that looks beyond symptoms. We are interested in the whole person—their story, identity, relationships, history and the context in which they are becoming a parent. We want people to feel understood rather than measured against an idea of what parenting is ‘supposed’ to look like.
Nurture Geelong was created with the belief that parents deserve specialist care during one of the most transformative periods of their lives. At the heart of our work is Bowlby’s enduring sentiment: “If a society values its children, it must cherish its caregivers.” We believe that caring for parents is not separate from caring for families. It is foundational to it.