Mental Wellness

Starting a family is a stressful event. Even if things go without a hitch, getting pregnant or having a baby can change schedules and routine, intensify responsibilities, and cause roles within the family to evolve into something much greater than they ever were before. Add on to this difficulties getting pregnant, pregnancy complications, birth complications, or postpartum stressors, and its no wonder that perinatal and postpartum mood disorders effect 1 in 7 women (according to the American Psychological Association).

Ashley Santana is a Licensed Professional Counselor of Mental Health. She is ambitious in her pursuit to provide mental wellness to underserved populations in the Delaware community. Ashley has been providing clinical services in the state of Delaware for over 7 years with several community-based, person-centered, and strength-based programs that value the ideal of identifying and cultivating the clients ability to work through problems and increase resiliency. Ashley is passionate in her belief that the client is in charge of their own success. She stresses that working to give a client the tools needed to regain what has been taken through trauma and other difficult life experiences is key to finding this success.

Throughout Ashley’s career, she has utilized evidence-based and extensively researched psychotherapeutic methods to treat populations who have experienced domestic abuse, sexual assault, present and past life traumas, and more recently, perinatal and post-partum populations. Ashley’s focus at Dedicated to Women is to provide support in individual and group settings as well as connecting women to the right resources in the community. Treatment will focus on increasing the clients ability to improve their daily functioning, manage life stressors, process traumatic events, identify and utilize coping skills, and establish strong support. Patients referred to Ashley for treatment inside of Dedicated to Women will be seen individually as well as in group settings. Treatment will focus on developing coping skills to manage stress and encourage a healthy emotional wellbeing, processing traumatic events, discussing changes in the patient’s socio-economic environment, and assisting with referrals to other community resources. Treatment will be ongoing and will continue throughout the patient’s OB or gynecological care.

It is our goal at Dedicated to Women to provide the connections that women need with professionals and others in the community in order to feel less isolated during the family-building process. In doing so, we now offer Individual Therapy for women who are experiencing symptoms of mood disorders, or significant stress stemming from an OBGYN condition or diagnosis. Some examples of situations which would qualify for a mental health consult include: