Before you can hold them, you deserve to be held
You've been holding a lot. You don't have to hold it alone. You just have to be willing to show up — for yourself, and for the relationship you're building with your baby.
I created Held Perinatal because I know how heavy motherhood can feel — even when you love your baby fiercely. You don't have to hold all of it alone.
At Held Perinatal, I offer specialist therapy for the emotional transition into parenthood and for the early relationship that shapes everything. I support mothers as they navigate the big feelings of pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood, and I help strengthen the connection between you and your baby.
Why infant mental health matters
Babies grow best when they're held in the mind of a caregiver who can bear their feelings. But when you're overwhelmed, exhausted, or carrying more than anyone can see, it can feel impossible to hold both your baby and yourself at the same time.
Held Perinatal is a space created to support you first — a place where you can bring the real, messy, tender parts of motherhood and be held until you feel steady enough to hold your baby.
Ugly crying welcome.
Accredited Social Worker
Member, Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)
In person in Bundall on the Gold Coast · Telehealth across Australia · Home visiting
Qualifications & training
- Masters of Social Work — UNSW
- Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) — UNSW
- Accredited Social Worker — AASW
- Authorised Mental Health Practitioner
- Certified Marte Meo Practitioner
- Perinatal and Infant Mental Health trained — Perinatal Training Centre
About Lyndall
I'm Lyndall — a therapist, a mother, and someone who has spent over 35 years walking alongside women and families in some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.
I come to this work not only as a clinician, but as someone who understands from the inside how disorienting and isolating early motherhood can feel.
I'm a Masters-qualified, perinatal trained, Authorised Mental Health clinician and Accredited Social Worker, which means I'm a highly trained clinician — but more importantly, I am someone who believes the work of becoming a mother matters, that your struggles are real and deserving of care, and that you don't need to be in crisis to deserve support.
I've worked in inpatient Mother and Baby Units, in community perinatal services, and now in private practice. And across all of that, one thing has remained constant: the mothers who sit with me don't need to be fixed. They need to be seen.
That's what I'm here for.
How we'll work together
We'll start exactly where you are
Together, we'll gently make sense of what's been happening — at your pace, without judgement or pressure. Your story deserves to be heard with kindness.
My hope is that you leave each session feeling a little lighter than when you arrived. Not because everything has been fixed, but because, for an hour, you didn't have to carry it all on your own.
You don't need to have it all together to reach out. If things feel messy, overwhelming, or heavier than you expected, this space is for you.
You don't need the right words. You don't need to explain yourself perfectly. You don't need to be in crisis or "bad enough" to deserve support. You just need to be a mother finding this hard — and ready, even a little, to not do it alone anymore.
How I work
At the heart of everything I do is relationship
Yours with your baby, and the one we build together in our work.
I'm not here to hand you a checklist or tell you what a good mother looks like. I'm here to slow down with you, make sense of what's actually happening, and help you find your own way through.
My approach is warm, practical, and genuinely non-judgemental. I'm led by values of authenticity, connection — and yes, a little fun. Because not everything has to be heavy, even when the "sh$t gets real".
I warmly welcome single parents and LGBTQ+ families into my practice.
I work across the full perinatal journey — from conception and pregnancy through birth and the early years — supporting mothers and families navigating:
- The identity shifts of matrescence
- Perinatal anxiety and depression
- The relationship changes that come with a new baby
- Bonding and connection with your baby
- Birth experiences that didn't go as expected
- Fertility difficulties, assisted reproduction, and perinatal loss
- The adjustment to parenthood — for mothers, fathers, and partners
The Marte Meo difference
"On one's own strength"
One of the most distinctive things I bring to this work is my training as a certified Marte Meo practitioner.
Marte Meo — from the Latin meaning "on one's own strength" — is a gentle, strengths-based method developed in Holland by Maria Aarts over forty years ago and now used in 43 countries. It works with the ordinary, everyday moments between you and your baby — a feed, a nappy change, a quiet moment on the mat — to find and grow the connection that's already there.
We use brief video of your real interactions — not to judge or critique, but to discover. Together we slow down and look closely at what's happening between you. What your baby is communicating. Where you're already attuning to them, even when you can't feel it yourself. And from there, we build.
It is one of the most quietly powerful things I have witnessed in my clinical career — a mother seeing, perhaps for the first time, the exquisite moments already happening between her and her baby.
Why an Accredited Social Worker?
Not a clinical process. A human one.
If you've wondered whether a social worker is the right fit — or whether you need a psychologist instead — here's what I'd want you to know.
Accredited Social Workers who work in mental health are highly trained therapeutic clinicians. We offer evidence-informed counselling and holistic support — without the emphasis on diagnosis, formal assessment, or labels.
Many of my clients choose this path precisely because they want meaningful, compassionate support that meets them where they are.
I'd love to hear from you
There's no pressure, no obligation, and no wrong way to begin. I offer in-person sessions in Bundall on the Gold Coast, telehealth, and home visiting — because support should meet you where you are.
No pressure. No commitment. Just a conversation.