Kris McKeown
Birth trauma specialist
Traumatic Birth Recovery (TBR) 3 Step Rewind is a gentle and effective framework to lessen the impact of traumatic birth memories. Many people experience a traumatic event (sometimes more than one) around the conception, birth or early parenting experience with a child; your own or someone else’s.
This can result in intrusive negative thoughts, nightmares, or flashbacks about the event. It can lead you to avoid places or situations that remind you of what happened. It can lead to feeling more irritable than you were before the event happened or experiencing sleeplessness that’s not caused by a baby waking you.
Any of these behaviours can add to the (significant!) challenges of parenthood, and can affect your close relationships, including your bond with your baby. It can also affect how you view yourself. Often these thoughts and feelings settle on their own, with time, but sometimes they seem to get stuck.
The TBR 3 Step Rewind technique harnesses your own innate ability to heal from a traumatic event that is still impacting your day-to-day life. I’m not here to fix you, because I do not believe you are broken. Using guided relaxation and visualisation, I can support you to you revisit the memory in a safe way, completely under your control, and break the neural connections that lead to being triggered, allowing the memory to be reprocessed.
If you'd like to work with me using this powerful yet gentle technique, if you have the time to commit to all three steps and practice between and have a desire for positive change, please fill in the contact form on the 'how to book' section on this page and we can begin to discuss the change you are looking for. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
Specialises in: Birth trauma
My interest in birth began with the birth of my first child in 2008. It didn't go how I'd hoped, and my experiences inspired me to change career. I was a biochemist by training, finishing my PhD while on maternity leave, and I became fascinated by pregnancy, birth and early parenting.
Recognising the importance of the mind-body connection, how environment and emotional safety impacts bodies on a biochemical level has led me to want to help people understand and honour their own needs to be able to come through pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting, or through loss, as whole as possible. I love helping people find their own resources to parent with confidence and in line with their own values.
I have supported families in Sheffield in a number of different ways; as an antenatal teacher, a volunteer breastfeeding counsellor and since 2013 as a birth doula. My experiences as a birth doula have led me to want to be able to support parents who have had difficult experiences in a more practical way, beyond a confidential, non-judgemental listening ear, and so I decided to invest in an 18 month course with Traumatic Birth Recovery College in Perinatal Emotional Health and Wellbeing.
The first part of the training, and the first service I'll be offering, is TBR 3 Step Rewind, a gentle but very effective therapeutic technique that can help release heavy feelings and anxiety following a difficult or traumatic experience.
Possible outcomes from working with me are...
Working with me using the TBR 3 Step Rewind technique can release you from symptoms that can be caused by a traumatic or difficult memory. Symptoms such as negative intrusive thoughts, irritability, flashbacks, wanting to avoid people or places that remind you of what happened, and sleeplessness can all be improved.
Close relationships can be improved where feeling of guilt, blame or shame have crept in as result of what happened. Being able to reprocess the memory allows you to remember it as part of your life with a new sense of perspective, creating space to choose how you want to think, feel and respond to different challenges.
If you're pregnant again after a difficult experience, it can help you to approach your upcoming birth with confidence and positivity rather than fear and anxiety.
What happens in the first and subsequent sessions?
To work through the TBR 3 Step Rewind process we’d meet three times, either in person or online. It’s important that you’re able to be fully relaxed, so reliable childcare for your little one(s) while you’re in these sessions is really important.
Step One typically takes 90 minutes. We’ll explore how the memory is affecting your day-to-day life and how your life might change if its emotional hold over you were no longer there. We’ll use guided relaxation to begin working towards a fully relaxed state and I’ll share a recording of this relaxation with you to listen to 3 or 4 times in the week between the first and second sessions. This can help to deepen the relaxation response in preparation for working with your memory using the TBR 3 Step Rewind in Step Two.
Step Two lasts 60 minutes and takes place one week after session one. Using guided relaxation to allow a fully relaxed state that makes it feel safer to access the traumatic memory, I’ll guide you through the TBR 3 Step Rewind technique. We’ll end Step Two in a state of relaxation, imagining your life with the positive changes you’d like to see.
Step Three takes 60 minutes, 10-14 days after Step Two. In this follow up appointment, we’ll explore how you feel about the memory now and any positive changes you’ve noticed. You'll have the opportunity to spend more time in relaxation seeing yourself in the future with the positive changes you’d like to see.
Additional information
TBR 3 Step Rewind does not erase memories; you will still remember what happened, but it won’t have the same emotional hold on you, allowing you to move on with your life in a positive way. It is not a talking therapy, but a dynamic, solution-focussed approach that is incredibly gentle, yet effective.
You don’t have to have previous experience of working in this way, but an open mind and a desire for positive change is a must. Due to the complex nature of mental health, this technique is not suitable if you have been diagnosed with complex PTSD, DID, BPD, schizophrenia, or other serious mental health condition.
What I can support you with using this technique is getting back to something like the emotional equilibrium you enjoyed before the event occurred, so you are able to rise to the challenges of parenting in your own way, without this particular shadow of the past hanging over you.