Pascale Vermont
Bay Area - San Francisco Guide
San Francisco GUIDE
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Location
San Francisco, CA
I visit couples in their homes within 45 minutes of San Francisco and also meet with people virtually wherever they live.
Education/Certification
PhD, Clinical Psychology
Perinatal Grief Counseling
Surviving the Unimaginable: Stories of Coping with Pregnancy and Infancy Loss
Personal Mission
My mission is to accompany couples who lose babies during pregnancy or in the first few weeks of life and help them navigate their deep sorrow from the early days after the loss up until they are able to continue grieving their baby on their own and re-engage with life in new and meaningful ways.
Specific Expertise
I am a clinical psychologist with a specialty in perinatal grief counseling
You have such a unique way of working with your patients. Can you share more about what your sessions look like?
I think of myself as a companion to people's pain, almost as a "sherpa" who walks alongside climbers, shares their burdens, and warns them of upcoming treacherous terrain in their grief journey. As I accompany parents through their grief process after they lose a baby, I reassure them that their reactions and feelings are natural under the circumstances, and I share with them what has helped other couples face the many aspects of this kind of loss. I emphasize their native strengths and use these to cope with the obstacles ahead. When possible, I visit them in their home to convey to them that our work is one of collaboration in an atmosphere of trust and safety. I also offer my services to any family member who has been impacted by the loss of a baby, such as siblings and grandparents.
What inspires your work?
I am continually inspired by parents' love for their baby, expressed by their profound grief, by their need to be completely vulnerable as they learn to put one foot in front of the other, by their willingness to learn to respect their grieving differences, by the multitude of ways they honor their baby, and by the strengths they discover in themselves as they become changed by their grief and make different priorities in their lives.
Please share with us your perspective on the difference between grief and trauma and the importance of distinguishing the two.
Trauma refers to shocking events, such as being told a baby has died or will die, which places an individual in circumstances where no coping mechanism seems to exist and leads to feeling frozen in place. Trauma affects people at many levels - emotionally, physically, behaviorally, cognitively, and spiritually - each of which needs to be healed. Grief is the experience of deep loss of a person and of what they represented to the individual, and requires deep reflection and transformation over time on the way to healing. Because trauma leads to being frozen in reliving a devastating experience, it needs to be dealt with first before attending to the grief.
What are some things that one can do for a friend or family member who has just experienced loss or is about to experience loss?
Offering practical help, such as organizing a meal train or providing child-care services, without expecting much conversation can be very helpful. Becoming a point person who disseminates information about the loss and the couple's needs, and who filters all texts and emails can allow the parents space to grieve and give permission not to respond to messages until they are able to. When speaking with the couple, the best thing to do is to listen to them tell the story of the loss, refrain from giving advice or comparing this loss to any other, and acknowledge the existence of the baby by using the baby's name, asking to see photos if appropriate, and understanding that grief is not linear and will take much longer to recover from than one might expect.
What is your self-care ritual?
Because of the nature of my work, and because I teach self-care to humanitarian workers and medical professionals, I am very intentional in also taking care of myself. I meditate for a few minutes before and after meeting with couples, I balance time alone to recharge with time with family and friends, I take breaks from work by traveling, cooking, reading, watching foreign films, and spending time in nature.
What are you watching/listening to/reading right now?
For entertainment I watch a lot of foreign series (Lupin, The Split, Balthazar...), I listen to podcasts (Ezra Klein, Sam Harris...), and have loved a few books in the past year (The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See, and The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah to name a few).