You are listening to episode 73 is Mom Brain Real and how can we relax into our new self?

Welcome to this week's episode. I am so excited to welcome Dr. Elise Demarco,

who is a clinical psychologist and author of the book Mom Brain, proven strategies to fight

the anxiety, guilt, and overwhelming emotions of motherhood and relax into your new self.

And she is here today to talk to me all about Mom Brain. Thank you so much for joining us today,

Dr. Debrouh. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm so excited to have you.

I think, you know, Mom Brain is something that I didn't really realize was a thing until I became a

mom and now I'm like, wow, this title of your book very much speaks to me and I know we'll speak

to so many of my followers. Tell me a little bit more about yourself and why you wrote this book.

Sure. So I am a clinical psychologist, as you mentioned, and I started my career specializing

in cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety and mood issues. And cognitive behavioral therapy,

just briefly for those listeners who don't know, is a short-term research-supported treatment

that really is geared towards providing strategies for people to manage their problems in the

here and now. So CBT is, you know, not about unpacking childhood issues extensively. It's not

about digging into the origins of a problem. It's really about, you know, here and now issues

and what kinds of strategies you can use to manage those issues. So I, you know, I had an

expertise in that. And then when I started my own private practice in the suburbs of New York City

about 10 years ago, it was when I was myself becoming a mother. And I think because of my age and,

you know, stage in life, I was attracting a lot of patients who were also new mothers. And what

I found was that many of the strategies that had been researched supported in CBT for things like

generalized anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic disorder actually matched really

well onto a lot of the issues that new moms face. All of the membrane stuff, which includes,

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