About
You have been the capable one long enough
Helping women feel safe enough to fully live, love, and mother. I work with women who handle everything and tell no one what it costs. My job is to help you set that down, at least for 50 minutes at a time.

I'm Leah Harlan, MA, LPC, a licensed professional counselor in Virginia. I specialize in birth trauma and the perinatal window, and I also work with patients dealing with perinatal anxiety, trauma and PTSD, ADHD, perfectionism, and burnout.
Who I Work With
Most of the patients I see are physicians, attorneys, executives, entrepreneurs, and therapists themselves. They're good at their jobs. They're good at managing everyone else's needs. They've spent years being the reliable one, the one who doesn't fall apart, the one everyone else leans on.
There's a particular kind of strength that looks like coping. From the outside it looks like competence. From the inside it can feel like exhaustion that never quite has a name, anxiety that hums under the surface of an otherwise well run life, or a birth experience that still visits you at 3am even though everyone tells you the baby is healthy so you should be fine.
How I Work
I use Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems, and somatic approaches. These aren't add ons to talk therapy, they're the work itself. Trauma and chronic stress live in the body and the nervous system as much as in the story you tell about them, so we work with both.
You won't be rushed. You won't be judged. And you won't be handed generic advice about self care that you already know and already can't make room for. We go at the pace your system can actually integrate, toward what's true for you, not what sounds good on a worksheet.
What a Session Is Like
Sessions are unhurried and specific to you. There's no script. Some sessions are quiet and slow, working with the body and a fixed point of focus. Some are more conversational, mapping the parts of you that took over a long time ago to keep you safe. What we do depends on what's present that day.
How I Work with the Women I See
I am not trying to be everything to everyone. The work I do is specialized, it goes deeper than a weekly check in, and I ask a little about you before we begin so we both know it is the right fit.
A Conversation First
The consultation is free and there is no pressure in it. We talk for a short while, you ask what you want to ask, and you decide afterwards.