Healing the Tigress Ep. 12 - Public Policy, Prejudice, and Postpartum with Divya Kumar, LICSW, ScM, PMH-C
The episode today is rich with a wide range of topics from public policy, to race and racism, to PPD/PPA/PPOCD. A heartwarming message we also get to highlight is how it’s never too late to change your career and chase your dreams.
Divya Kumar, LICSW, ScM, PMH-C is a South Asian-American psychotherapist with a public health background who specializes in perinatal mental health, trauma, and the life transitions related to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. She is a mom of two teenagers and especially passionate about holding space for folks of color and folks who identify as first- and second-generation immigrants as they navigate the transition to parenthood and explore how race, racial identity, and culture intersect with parenting.
Before becoming a therapist, Divya's work focused on connecting clinical services with public health by addressing unmet needs in direct perinatal mental healthcare and the structure and delivery of perinatal support services. Currently, she participates in initiatives to improve perinatal mental health services and systems of care at both the state and national levels. Divya is a Co-Founder of the Perinatal Mental Health Alliance for People of Color (the Alliance), Board Member of Postpartum Support International (PSI) of Massachusetts, and a Commissioner on the Ellen Story Commission for Postpartum Depression.
In this conversation, we talk about how Divya was inspired to co-found the Alliance with Jabina Coleman and Desiree Israel after a fateful PSI conference, as a way to invite more providers and mothers of color to the resources that PSI had to offer. Divya also shares about her own personal postpartum journey that was rife with PMADs (PPD, PPA, PPOCD) she never got diagnosed with and finally understood years later.
Divya also returned to school after realizing the work she was doing with postpartum women after becoming a mother herself was inspiring a calling to become a therapist who could work particularly with women of color. As someone who is raising multiracial, multicultural children, Divya is also highly aware of the privilege and also the racism that her kids will have to grapple with. She talks about parenting in a new generation, often “bushwhacking” or carving out our own paths because we were never shown how to value feelings and mental health as AAPI children.
This is one of the most fiery and passionate conversations we’ve had, and we hope you will enjoy it too!
Find more of Divya on Instagram: www.instagram.com/bothbrownandtherapist
Resources mentioned:AsAm news article: Better Luck Yesterday
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Note: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own. This podcast is not a replacement for therapy or professional/medical advice. If you need more support or advice, please reach out to your own medical professional who can answer your questions with your individual medical history and background in context.