Today we’d like to introduce you to Perri Shaw Borish.
Hi Perri, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started my private practice over 20 years ago, initially specializing in maternal mental health. I practiced on my own for about 12 years, until Ana Gelman convinced me to hire her—and that was really the beginning of Whole Heart Reproductive Mental Health. Around that same time, I realized that the work needed to expand beyond maternal mental health alone. I wanted the practice to be more inclusive of the full range of reproductive experiences and transitions that can affect mental health, not only pregnancy and postpartum.
Since then, the practice has grown, although we have intentionally remained small. Every therapist at Whole Heart has specialized training and certification in maternal and reproductive mental health, which allows us to offer a level of expertise and depth that is very important to me.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
COVID was probably one of the biggest and most humbling challenges we faced. Overnight, I had to figure out not only how to see patients virtually—something we had never done before—but also how to run an entire practice virtually. We were adapting clinically and operationally at the same time, without really knowing how long any of it would last.
At the same time, the demands being placed on therapists were enormous, especially therapists who were also mothers and were suddenly trying to care for their patients while managing their own children’s virtual schooling and family needs.
It was also such an unusual experience as a therapist because suddenly almost all of our patients were struggling with the same fears and uncertainty that we were struggling with ourselves. There wasn’t the usual separation where you are helping someone through something that isn’t happening to you. We were all living through COVID together.
For me personally, I was trying to manage my own anxiety and uncertainty, be present for my patients, take care of my family, and also support the therapists in my practice as they navigated many of the same fears and responsibilities.
That period taught me a lot about being a therapist and about leadership. I learned that supporting people doesn’t always mean having the answer. Often it means being willing to sit with the uncertainty, stay connected, and figure things out together.
More broadly, building Whole Heart has also meant learning how to grow a practice while protecting the quality and personal feel that are so important to me. I was trained to be a therapist, not to run a business, so there has been a tremendous amount I’ve had to learn along the way. I’m still learning and hope to always be learning.
As you know, we’re big fans of Whole Heart Reproductive Mental Health. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Whole Heart Reproductive Mental Health is a psychotherapy practice specializing in reproductive mental health across the adult female lifespan. We work with people through pregnancy and postpartum, infertility, all types of pregnancy loss (including stillbirth and neonatal death), birth trauma, abortion and adoption, perimenopause and menopause, and parenting transitions.
What I think sets Whole Heart apart is that we are highly specialized and very collaborative with other medical providers. We also spend a great deal of time training, both as a team and individually, so that our clinicians have a strong understanding of the reproductive and medical experiences our patients are navigating.
It can be hard enough to show up to therapy. When someone then has to educate their therapist or spend valuable time explaining why infertility, pregnancy loss, postpartum anxiety, a difficult birth, or a reproductive transition can affect every part of their life, it can make an already difficult experience even harder. Our goal is for patients to feel that they are coming into a space where the clinician already understands the context and can meet them where they are.
I’m very proud of the level of specialization we have built and very proud of our team. We regularly communicate and coordinate with physicians and other providers when appropriate, because reproductive mental health never exists in isolation.
More than anything, I want people to know that Whole Heart was built around the idea that people deserve thoughtful, trauma informed, compassionate mental health care during some of the most vulnerable and complicated periods of their lives.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way is how to sit with people in discomfort and pain without feeling like I have to make it better.
So much of the work we do at Whole Heart involves experiences that cannot ever be fixed—pregnancy loss, infertility, birth trauma, difficult reproductive decisions, and major life transitions. I’ve learned that there is tremendous value in being able to sit beside someone in that uncertainty, tolerate the discomfort with them, and hold their story even when there isn’t an obvious solution or a right thing to say.
I think that has shaped me not only as a therapist, but also as a supervisor and a leader. I try to teach our clinicians that we don’t always need to move someone away from their pain. More often than not, our job is to sit with them in their pain and grief and hold a space where they can experience it – all of it and begin to make sense of it, and eventually find their way to the other side—knowing that someone is willing to stay there with them along the way.
Over the years, I’ve also come to understand more and more what an extraordinary privilege and honor it is to be trusted with someone’s story. As therapists, people invite us into the most private, vulnerable, painful, and complicated parts of their lives. They tell us things they may never have said out loud before and may never tell anyone else. We become the holders of their stories and, sometimes, their secrets.
I never want to lose sight of what an enormous act of trust that is. There is a responsibility that comes with being trusted in that way, but there is also something incredibly sacred about it. After all these years, I still feel genuinely humbled that people allow me into those parts of their lives.
I think that has been one of the most meaningful lessons of my career: sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is simply be willing to stay with someone in their fear and grief, hold their story with care, and walk alongside them as they move through it.
Pricing:
- private pay and we accept most of the IBX insurances and some BCBS and Compsych
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wholeheartreproductivementalhealth.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholeheart_psychotherapy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/perri.borish
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perri-shaw-borish-mss-lcsw-bcd-pmh-c-27159a10/
- Twitter: https://x.com/perrishawborish?lang=en
