Mentorship Opportunities 
The Karen Kleiman Training Center

Mentoring Partnership Program

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The Philosophy Behind This Program

Therapists who treat individuals and families struggling with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders encounter unique challenges and profound rewards. This specialized work requires close attention to the particular needs of this population as well as awareness of the emotional impact on the clinician. While training programs and books provide valuable foundations, clinicians consistently tell us they need more. This work is intensely personal and often deeply intimate. It touches into places that feel familiar, vulnerable, or tender for the clinician. Transference and countertransference issues naturally arise—sometimes enriching the work, other times complicating it.

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The PPSC mentoring program offers clinicians a safe, supportive space to explore these experiences and use them to deepen both self-awareness and clinical effectiveness. This becomes especially important for clinicians who have experienced depression or anxiety themselves. These lived experiences can make them feel uniquely equipped to help, yet also intensely vulnerable. Mentoring provides a structure where these feelings can be examined, understood, and integrated with professionalism and confidence.

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The Mentoring Partnership Program combines the benefits of a therapeutic relationship with individualized consultation from leading experts in perinatal mental health. Our mentoring model is grounded in The Art of Holding Perinatal Women in Distress™ model of intervention, emphasizing presence, containment, authenticity, and emotional attunement.

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Educational Objectives (core developmental goals)

• Develop and refine professional skills

• Advance clinical awareness and understanding of self

• Explore areas of vulnerability and strength

• Confront risk-taking opportunities and potential barriers

• Use personal experiences to enhance self-awareness and clinical insight

• Identify areas for personal growth and development

• Assess readiness and strengthen confidence

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Holding-Informed Clinical Competencies

• Enhance relational attunement and strengthen presence, responsiveness, and emotional resonance

• Deepen capacity to tolerate and contain affective intensity without rescuing, avoiding, or over-functioning

• Cultivate the therapist’s holding posture, including containment, receptivity, mindful restraint, and tolerance of ambiguity

• Expand comfort with uncertainty and the unpredictable nature of perinatal presentations

• Explore challenging cases from a holding lens

• Strengthen ethical decision-making in complex or high-risk situations

• Promote resilience and emotional sustainability to support long-term clinical work

• Deepen insight into any personal triggers or areas of vulnerability

• Foster ongoing professional identity development using the therapist’s authentic self with intention and therapeutic clarity

Framework

• Prerequisite: completion of PPSC 6hr or 12 hr post graduate training program

• Informal structure will be driven by the needs of the clinician. Clinician will be responsible for the number and frequency of meetings.

• We prefer that you email prior to your first meeting with your agenda, goals or an outline of topics/cases you would like to discuss. training@postpartumstress.com

• Fee for mentoring session with Karen Kleiman is $400.00 per 45 mins meeting.

• Fee for mentoring session with Ashlee Adams is $250.00 per 45 mins meeting.

• Payment can be made through this PPSC paypal link

 

Mentoring candidates

• Due to limited availability for Karen Kleiman we require applicants first attend our 12hr post graduate professional training program. Graduates of the 6 hr holding are eligible for mentoring with Ashlee Adams. 

• Karen is currently only available for one-time mentoring support. Individuals seeking ongoing mentoring should contact Ashlee.

• Clinicians who are starting out in practice and those who have established practices may apply, if they have taken our AOH 6 or 12 hr training

• Applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis.

• Once your application has been reviewed, you will be contacted regarding your acceptance status.

• Mentoring scheduling depends on what best meets your professional and personal needs.