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Mums Matter Psychology

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Sunshine, VIC
Mums Matter Psychology

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Mums Matter Psychology is dedicated to quality mental health care for pregnant women and new mums.

09/10/2026

Fran has a special interest in supporting women through pregnancy, postpartum, and the transition to motherhood. She understands this period represents one of life's most profound transformations, affecting identity, relationships, body, and mental health simultaneously.

Using a warm, compassionate, and evidence-based approach, Fran helps women navigate challenges such as anxiety, depression, birth trauma, parenting stress, and identity changes. She combines professional expertise with genuine understanding of the complexity mothers face.

Fran's goal is building confidence, self-compassion, and resilience—equipping you not just to survive motherhood but to thrive within it. As a Board-Approved Supervisor, she also trains other psychologists, extending her impact across the mental health field.

06/10/2026

❓ Why do I feel disconnected from myself since becoming a parent?

Early parenthood often requires you to operate in pure survival mode—meeting immediate needs without space for reflection, preference, or personhood beyond caregiving. This necessary intensity creates disconnection from your actual self.

Disconnection happens gradually. You stop noticing what you like, what you need, who you are beyond someone's mother. Your body becomes functional—touched constantly for feeding and comfort but rarely for affection. Your mind quiets your own needs to constantly attend to others'.

This dissociation is protective temporarily but becomes problematic when it persists. You feel you're going through parenting motions without actually inhabiting your experience. Life happens to you rather than with you.

Reconnection requires noticing small preferences again. Do you want coffee or tea? What sounds good for lunch? What music do you want to hear? These tiny choices rebuild connection with your internal experience.

This reconnection work isn't selfish—it allows you to show up more fully and authentically for your family.

02/10/2026

The assumption that parents—especially mothers—are endlessly capable of providing care without receiving it creates impossible expectations. You cannot pour from an empty cup, yet you're expected to try constantly.

Parents have bodies that need rest, emotions that need processing, relationships that need tending, and mental health that requires attention. You're not just a function providing for others—you're a whole person with legitimate needs.

Yet asking for care feels selfish in a culture that glorifies parental sacrifice. You minimize your needs, delay your healing, and suppress your struggles to prioritize others. This eventually creates resentment, burnout, and sometimes mental health crisis.

You deserve care as much as the people you care for. Your needs aren't less important because you're the caregiver. Taking care of yourself isn't selfish—it's essential maintenance that allows you to continue showing up for those depending on you.

29/09/2026

🤍 When Parenting Feels Lonely

Understanding emotional isolation and the importance of connection. One of motherhood's cruelest paradoxes is feeling profoundly alone while never actually being alone—constantly surrounded yet isolated.

This loneliness isn't about lacking people. It's about lacking genuine emotional connection and being truly seen as a whole person beyond your caregiving function. When every interaction centers on what you provide, you feel invisible despite constant visibility.

The constant physical demands can intensify loneliness. Touch saturation from baby care combined with lack of reciprocal adult connection creates paradoxical isolation—surrounded by touch yet emotionally starved.

This form of loneliness is particularly painful because it's hard to explain. People see you're "not alone" and can't understand why you feel isolated. But humans need more than proximity—we need attunement, reciprocal connection, and to be seen as whole people.

If you recognize this loneliness, seek connection that truly sees you—friends who ask how you're doing, therapists who witness your experience, partners who offer emotional presence.

27/09/2026

Truth

Seen at from (image from The Letdown)

26/09/2026

Sage advice for new or expecting parents

Seen at

25/09/2026

"Apparently, Tuesday has been doing a lot of heavy lifting in our relationships.
After 30 years of studying what makes love last, one thing hasn’t changed much: the ordinary moments matter. A lot.

The way you say goodbye in the morning. Whether you look up when your partner starts talking. The random check-in. The inside joke. Noticing when they’re a little quieter than usual.

None of it feels particularly groundbreaking on a Tuesday afternoon.
But those little pieces add up.

For our upcoming 30th anniversary, we’re reflecting on what’s changed in relationships, what hasn’t, and what three decades of relationship science keep bringing us back to."

Seen at

25/09/2026

You're not lazy—you're overloaded. Mental exhaustion manifests as physical fatigue, difficulty concentrating, emotional numbness, decision paralysis, and struggling with tasks that usually feel easy. These signal cognitive overload, not motivation failure.

Difficulty making simple decisions: What to cook for dinner feels impossible. Mental bandwidth is depleted, leaving no capacity for choices. This isn't indecision; it's exhaustion affecting executive function.

Physical fatigue despite sleeping: You're tired beyond what rest addresses because your nervous system runs in constant activation. Sleep doesn't restore capacity already maxed out.

Emotional numbness or irritability: You feel nothing or everything simultaneously. Emotional regulation is offline when mental load exceeds capacity. Irritability signals you're pushed past sustainable limits.

Difficulty concentrating: Your mind won't focus on tasks because it's divided among multiple competing demands. Attention is hijacked by background worry and mental planning.Resistance to activities you usually enjoy: Depression or burnout dims pleasure. When everything feels heavy, it signals you need support, not willpower.

ion

23/09/2026

"Depression doesn’t discriminate ❤️‍🩹 We loved this honest reflection from on her three experiences with PND as she parented as a rural farming mum in the 90s."

Listen at @.podcast

22/09/2026

💔 The emotional cost of always being the strong one

When you're always the strong one—managing everything, holding others together, never showing vulnerability—you pay a hidden cost. Constant strength performance requires suppressing your own needs, emotions, and struggles.

Over time, this suppression creates distance from your actual experience. You lose touch with what you're feeling, needing, and experiencing beneath the strong exterior. You become a function rather than a person.

Additionally, always being strong sends a message that your struggles are unwelcome, that people shouldn't worry about you, that you don't need or deserve support. This isolation intensifies suffering you're privately experiencing.

Being strong sometimes is healthy. Being always strong is exhausting and creates disconnection from yourself and others. You deserve permission to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to admit when you're struggling.

Strength includes asking for support. Vulnerability isn't weakness—it's the foundation for genuine connection and sustainable wellbeing.

Address

Sunshine, VIC

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

+61390796930

Website

http://www.mumsmatterpsychology.com/

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