Research Interests

Developmental psychology, Perinatal Mental Health, mothering/parenting psychology, integrating somatic modalities in Perinatal Mental Health, integration of psychoanalytic and somatic modalities, the mind-body problem, trauma-informed/responsive care.

Biography

Helena is a licensed psychologist practicing trauma-informed somatic psychotherapy in North California. She is certified in Perinatal Mental Health and specializes in working with expecting and new parents. Before joining CIIS, Helena taught at several graduate institutions, including Reiss-Davis Graduate School, Antioch University, and The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Her areas of specialization include developmental psychology, perinatal mental health, and integrating psychodynamic and somatic modalities in trauma treatment. Helena also has extensive experience providing advanced level training of providers in perinatal mental health. She has published book chapters and articles on the topic of the psychology of mothering and its somatic aspects and is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing. Psychodynamic and Somatic Trauma Treatment for Perinatal Mental Health; a biopsychosocial framework for integrating and adapting a somatic approach to clinical work with the perinatal population. She is one of the hosts of the podcast channel New Books in Psychoanalysis and is on the editorial board of the International Body Psychotherapy Journal.  

Education

Doctor of Psychology, Applied Clinical Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

Master of Science in Psychology, University of Copenhagen

Courses

Movement Approaches to Somatic Psychology

Integrative Seminar

Psychodynamics

Somatic Approaches to Trauma & PTSD

Publications

Book

Vissing, H. (2023). Somatic Maternal Healing. Psychodynamic and Somatic Trauma Treatment for Perinatal Mental Health. Routledge.

Articles and Book Chapters

Vissing, H. (2024). The Impact of Negation of the Maternal Body on Embodiment and Subjectivity in Modernity. Psychoanalytic Perspectives 21(3), 330-353.

Vissing, H. (2017). A Perfect Birth: The Birth Rights Movement and the Idealization of Birth. In E. Toronto (Ed.), A Womb of Her Own: Women’s Struggle for Creative and Reproductive Autonomy. Routledge.

Vissing, H. (2016). Maternal Desires and Compulsory Motherhood. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, 7(2), 65-71.

Vissing, H. (2015). The Triumph Over the Body: Body Fantasies and Their Protective Function. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, 6(1). 168-175.

Vissing, H. (2014). The Ideal Mother Fantasy and Its Protective Function. In L. Ennis (Ed.), Intensive Mothering: The Cultural Contradictions of Modern Motherhood (104-119). Toronto: Demeter Press.