As a therapist, my main goal is helping to normalize this human experience.
- katzdan3
- Jul 6
- 13 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Ally Hanneke
New Mom School, SW Las Vegas; Marriage and Family Therapist
My dad passed away when I was 14 and my mom and me had a really rocky relationship through that time, so I ended up moving in with my best friend and really being on my own a little early on. I just remember that time feeling very alone, and wanting more support, wanting someone to talk to. I had really good friends, but nobody that could actually give me the understanding or support that I needed at that time. I pretty much knew as soon as I graduated high school that I wanted to be a therapist and I never changed my mind. I was always a people person, I loved understanding why people do certain things, so it just felt very right. I ended up going to UNLV and doing the master’s program in marriage and family therapy. That was so amazing, I had such a good experience where I got to meet so many diverse people from different backgrounds and different theoretical orientations, and I had really good mentorship.
I started seeing clients here at UNLV at the center and just fell in love immediately. I was the person who was like, “I want to see everything. I don’t know what my niche is, I just want to try everything and get as much experience as possible.” That’s how I went into therapy — I saw every client imaginable, I did take insurance as an associate, so I got an even wider population. Once I graduated, we moved to California; I was able to do my hours there in both a private practice and an agency setting that was a nonprofit. So I got a lot of experience and got to figure out what I loved working with and really narrowed it down; I loved helping people build their self-esteem, their confidence, and work against anxiety. I feel like we’re a very anxious generation and so much of social media is contributing to that, and contributing to low self-esteem, too.
Within that population, I started working with a lot of moms and teens. I wasn’t a mom yet, so I felt like maybe I wasn’t the best fit for that yet, but I knew it was an interest of mine. I loved the idea of working with moms to help them build confidence, because that population, all they do is everything for everybody else and it’s very rarely about them. I love helping people prioritize themselves. Eventually, I became a mom and I have a one-year old daughter. I actually got to experience a lot of post-partum anxiety, even as a therapist with all the tools. It was crazy to me. I was thinking, “I have all the support in the world, I have the tools I need, I should be fine.” I just don’t think it’s possible to prepare for the intensity of the emotional experience post-partum, and that’s what shook me. With the intensity of the experience and the hormonal fluctuations, it was front and center whether I wanted it to be there or not. I always appreciate when difficult things happen, though, because it does make me a better therapist, it does help me understand and empathize better. So I do appreciate that and feel gratitude for that experience, but at the same time, it was very difficult. I have a very supportive partner who was there for me, I had great friends, but there was this missing piece and I didn’t experience that until I got to do New Mom School.
New Mom School is a post-natal education program but it’s very different from a normal Mommy and Me. It pairs you with other moms whose babies are the same age, so you’re all in the same phase together. I had friends who had babies at different ages but a lot of times they just don’t remember things or they’re past the 3 a.m. stage, they’re sleeping through the night, it’s hard for them to relate. When I did New Mom School and I was in this group of 11 other moms and we were texting every day, it was this security blanket to wake up to people checking in, we were commiserating on the experience. Most of them also had post-partum anxiety and depression, so they could really relate to what I was going through. I saw that and I felt that and wow… as a therapist, I don’t really get to create community in this way very often, it’s really more often a one-on-one experience. Even with a support group — that’s more like a processing experience versus creating relationships. I did love the educational piece because I’m an information nerd and I love learning things, but to me, the best part was the community I gained and that was life-changing.
I saw that they were franchising and decided to just get some information, see if that was even an option and everything just felt very kismet… everything worked out. It was our way to move back home to Vegas and be closer to friends and family; my in-laws live here and they’re very helpful, my friends I grew up with all the way from high school are here and they’re basically family to me. So we took the leap and moved back and it was a great experience. We’re opening New Mom School Southwest Las Vegas this Saturday [June 14]. My “why” is really that I love empowering people, but absolutely women and moms. I know first-hand how hard that experience is and how isolating it can be without great support. I’m just excited to be able to give that back to more moms in Vegas; I know that there’s a huge need for that. Vegas is a strange community — it’s very transient, a lot of people move here from other places, they don’t have their friends and family.
We have a few different classes that are according to the babies’ age, so we have a newborn class for babies that are three to six weeks old, an infant class where they’re three to six months, a rising toddler where they’re six to 12 months. We also have a free breastfeeding support group and a free post-partum adjustment support group, which I am going to lead. We bring in local experts in different areas to talk about different topics. Some examples: we have a pelvic floor therapist come in and talk about our bodies post-baby, we have a maternal mental health expert talking about post-partum anxiety, we have a sleep consultant that can help with newborn sleep foundations, we have a feeding expert who can talk about starting solids because I know that’s a daunting topic for a lot of moms. Our curriculum is also very mom-focused, it’s not just about baby. We want to really change the way the mom is cared for and by doing that we focus on topics that support them best. We even have a relationship therapist come in and talk about the relationship post-baby, which is not very common. We are in a weird age where we are bombarded with so much information, and it is hard to know what is true or helpful. Our curriculum is evidenced based so we take the work out of trying to find the right information for you and your baby. We also connect moms with local experts to receive the support they need.
We are planning on doing some workshops and events to really continue creating community so that it just doesn’t end with classes. But we do encourage moms to hang out after classes as well and I feel like that really helps the create bonds. A lot of the mom meetups are so amazing now, but what happens is there’s different moms each time you go. A lot of times the conversations are a little surface-level and it’s really hard to go deeper. In New Mom School, you’re kind of forced to go a little bit deeper and talk about intimate topics, which bonds you. It’s at a very traumatic time or a very difficult time, so you’re almost trauma-bonded. And then you’re seeing the same people every week, so it’s easier to feel safer with them, be more vulnerable, and create lasting bonds.
There really isn’t anything like it right now, everything else is more focused on pre-natal classes and then just — ok, done! The same with the mom, too, we just have this one six-week appointment after [the birth] and they take a look and go, “Ok, you’re fine,” and that’s it. There’s just no aftercare support that we actually need. What you’ll get is a scale to see if you’re struggling with post-partum depression and/or anxiety, it mostly focuses on post-partum depression and they might recommend some medication or therapy, and that’s pretty much it. If you have a good doctor, they may talk about pelvic floor therapy, but that’s also not as talked about as well, and a lot of women need pelvic floor therapy post-partum. I don’t think women realize that it’s not normal to pee when you work out. You don’t have to live like that, there’s actually something for you. I think with managed care and insurance there’s only so much support they can offer without a diagnosis, so New Mom School is kind of trying to fill in the gaps of the lack of care for women and moms post-partum. Often I hear that a lot of women wish that they had this when they had kids, that there wasn’t anything like that. Which makes me sad, but also excited that we get to offer that.
I know this is geared toward moms and we’re seeing moms in the studio, but a lot of this benefits the partner because so often the mom is taking on so much. They’re the primary parent and it’s going to bleed over into the relationship and create resentment and arguments — it’s very common post-partum once the baby’s here because of the added stress. The normal ways that a couple is functioning likely are not going to work after the baby is here. So this actually supports the mom to help them in the relationship to communicate what they need to have an outlet, a source of support outside their partner, too, so that not everything is just, “You help me.” This isn’t just benefitting moms, it’s going to benefit the whole family.
I experienced New Mom School with my daughter in Orange County, that’s where the original one is. We’re the first one in Vegas. We want to keep the same special part about New Mom School that made it so successful in Orange County. My instructors and I were trained at the original location, and got to really understand the "why" behind it all. We learned the curriculum, how to teach the classes, and everything we needed to run New Mom School. New Mom School corporate also takes the time to help you understand how to run the business, and the "secret sauce" it takes to make it successful. Actually, the Orange County location has helped over 10,000 moms. It's in the Newport/Costa Mesa area. And now there are locations in Yorba Linda, Gilbert, Westport, LA, and more. A lot of these owners are former alumni of the program, so they have first hand experience with it and believe in the program.
I’m still seeing clients — I go into an office nearby and I’m still seeing my California clients virtually. I’m taking on some in-person clients for Nevada, too. Most of my days, I’m either chasing my daughter around and trying to answer e-mails in between, making phone calls, doing social media and trying to think about ways to market us and get the word out… it’s a lot of computer stuff. And now we are going to start teaching classes and I’m going to be an instructor as well, so I think my day-to-day is going to be even busier.
We’re getting it from so many different angles, this pressure to be a certain way and I think women feel it the most, but it goes to any other genders as well. We are constantly being bombarded with messaging, “Hey, you could look prettier, you could look younger, you could get these clothes and look better…” and obviously it’s marketing and capitalism trying to sell us something. I see through it, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the messaging. We’re just constantly feeling less-than in so many different ways and social media is targeting you for that specific reason, to make you feel less-than so you buy things, so you follow certain creators who are selling you things. It’s especially hard for teens right now, which is a population that I really enjoy seeing because of my own experience and knowing they are feeling so powerless in everything. It’s not like they’re an adult who can get in a car, make a choice, change their job… they are generally stuck. And social media is how they connect with other people, too. That’s the norm now, is that we connect with people that way. So their main source of connection can also be their main source of stress or anxiety.
It’s about helping them try to unlearn some of this messaging that they’re consuming, and this isn’t just for teens, this is for anybody, moms especially. There’s so many opinions about the way moms should be and at no point are you going to win because they’re all opposite of each other. It’s really about letting go of the need to please people and once we let go of that and know, “I don’t need to be a certain way and I’m still a good mom,” the anxiety naturally goes away. There can also be early experiences or relationships that can create anxiety; I use EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing] a lot with those clients and it is amazing. It’s a really effective treatment for trauma, and not just trauma in the big sense, like one event, but multiple events or just experiences in general. It helps you to reprocess those experiences and pair them with more helpful beliefs.
I had a lot of social anxiety and self esteem issues myself; I just had such bad confidence issues in myself as a therapist when I first started — total imposter syndrome, where I’m sitting with a client and I’m telling them things and I’m like, “Wait a second, I need to do that!” When I did my EMDR training, I was able to get EMDR done on me and I was able to reprocess this memory in school where I felt really embarrassed and a teacher made fun of me in front of the class — I know, horrible — but what a common experience where somebody had something in school where they felt embarrassed. That, weirdly, alleviated so much social anxiety and confidence issues, it was like I could go into a room and not worry so much about what people thought. I had already known these things logically, I’m helping clients get there, but it was almost that difference of having it finally click. EMDR has been a really great tool.
I also have learned some somatic tools because everything in therapy that I learned in school was very much focused on thoughts. CBT [Cognitive Behavioral Therapy] is a very common theoretical orientation in therapy and it is so helpful in a lot of ways. But I was just missing this one piece, especially with trauma work, where we weren’t focusing on the body enough — how trauma is stored in the body and how to release it. So I did a training on that and learned how to understand the way our bodies hold emotions, traumas, experiences, everything, and how to work with it. We focus a lot on our thoughts and how they may be unhelpful, how they’re tied to early experiences and relationships, our attachments to other people and ways of being. I do a lot of work with attachment theory and then focus on EMDR to reprocess early memories that can be contributing to issues and then work with some somatic tools to help release that from the body, too.
What helps me to hold all of this is to remind myself just how strong and resilient people are. Sometimes when they’re in my office, I’m seeing a patient at their worst, and that’s really sad. But then once I get to see them through that whole experience and come out to the other side, it reminds me: that is just one point in time. I’ve seen people get through the craziest things and I’ve seen how strong they can be. I have a lot of faith in people that they’ll get through it, and that’s what keeps me going. Seeing them come out the other side from everything is such a high, it’s the best feeling in the world. So that also keeps me going — it’s not all bad! The relationships that you form with people, too, you really care about them at the end of the day. It’s not like this is a just a job, like I go in and I’m a robot — which is also why AI is not going to replace therapists! No matter how good AI can be, it’ll never have that relationship quality and that connection you have with somebody when you get to hold space for them, it is really unlike anything. It’s the connection and the relationship, that’s one of the best parts of being human. That’s one of the best parts of this, is to be in a relationship. That’s my purpose for living; when people are like, “What’s the point?” I try to remind them of that feeling.
I just love therapy too much, I could never give that up. So my plan is to do that a few times a week and then teach classes a few days a week. And then I want to give back to the community with that free support group for post-partum adjustment. I’ve always felt very connected to this community, I just really love the people here. Vegas is an extremely diverse community; there’s people from all over — different countries and different states, that come here — and everyone is really caring. This community, the way they support each other is unmatched. After the October 1 shooting, the way the community came together and supported each other, I think is the reason why I’m like, “We need to give back more to this community.”
I have a hope for how this might go, and that’s just to help as many people as possible. If that means opening up another location where it’s more convenient for moms to come — because we all know post-partum with a fresh baby, you don’t want to drive that far. So if we can maybe open another location, I would love to offer more resources to the community: workshops, events, things to connect people.
I have a dream of creating a therapy collective as well, but that is down the line. I’ve found that it can be really hard to find care here. A lot of therapists are overburdened with really bogged-down caseloads, especially if they’re in an agency setting or if they’re private practice they’re full and they don’t take insurance. So I’d love to create a therapy collective where clients can get a lot of access to different resources: a couples therapist, a child therapist, a psychiatrist. So it’s easy, more convenient, and more accessible.
Each new generation is rating lower and lower on empathy, and it’s really sad. It’s because of the lack of in-person connection. When you’re staring at people on a screen, it’s hard to humanize and empathize with people. We just need more in-person community connection.
I think as a therapist, my main goal is helping to normalize this human experience. I just want people to know that even as a therapist, I struggle, and need help, need support. We’re not superhuman, we’re just regular people. You don’t have to struggle through things alone. That’s what I want people to know. We just are not meant to be alone or do anything alone. It’s a privilege to be able to hear people’s stories because you get to actually empathize with them.
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