Everything you may want to know before booking

Brazilian Portuguese. Therapy depends entirely on nuance, on the exact word a person chooses, on what is said and left unsaid. I am not willing to offer something in a language where I could not follow yours with that precision. If you are a Portuguese speaker living anywhere in the world, you are very welcome here.

It is the area of psychology that supports the mental health of a woman and her family from the moment she starts trying to conceive until roughly her child's second birthday. It covers fertility, pregnancy, preparation for birth, the postpartum, postpartum depression and anxiety, breastfeeding, pregnancy and infant loss, parenting, and rebuilding a sense of self after becoming a mother.

Parenthood is not only lived by the person who gestates. I see fathers, partners and people who came to parenthood through adoption or other routes, whenever the need sits within the perinatal and parenting field.

The baby blues appear in the first days after birth, last around two weeks and pass on their own. Postpartum depression is different: the symptoms persist beyond two weeks, intensify, and get in the way of your life.

Signs worth paying attention to:

• constant sadness or crying with no apparent reason;
• loss of pleasure in things you used to enjoy;
• difficulty bonding with the baby, or a feeling of numbness;
• intense guilt and the sense of being a bad mother;
• changes to sleep and appetite beyond what the postpartum explains;
• frightening thoughts, even ones you would never act on.

Only a professional can assess this, and you do not need to be certain of a diagnosis in order to ask for help. Asking is the first step, not the last.

Yes. Online psychological care is recognised and regulated by the Brazilian Federal Council of Psychology under Resolution CFP 11/2018. In the perinatal period it has real practical advantages: you do not have to leave the house with a baby, you can attend while breastfeeding, and you do not lose your slot to traffic or a bad night.

Yes. Babies cry, feed and need to be held, and that is precisely the reality we are working with. It does not disturb me, and it should not disturb you.

The price and the length of each session are shown on the booking page, before you confirm anything. Payment is taken on the website by Pix or credit card, in Brazilian reais.

Payment is taken in Brazilian reais by Pix or credit card, processed by Appmax. An international card usually works, and your bank applies its own exchange rate and possibly a foreign transaction fee. The payment processor requires a CPF, which is the Brazilian tax number. If you do not have one, message me on WhatsApp and we will find a way.

Every time shown on the site is Brasília time, UTC minus three hours, with no daylight saving. I work Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. From Portugal or the UK that is usually your afternoon or evening; from the east coast of the United States it is usually your morning.

Directly in your patient area, free of charge, with at least 24 hours notice. Within 24 hours the session is considered held, because that slot was reserved exclusively for you and can no longer be offered to someone else. If something serious and unforeseen happens, message me on WhatsApp and we will talk.

Sessions are private. I issue a receipt carrying my professional registration for every session, available in your patient area. Some Brazilian health plans reimburse psychotherapy against it. Whether an insurer outside Brazil accepts a Brazilian receipt is a question only that insurer can answer.

Yes. Confidentiality is an obligation under the Brazilian Psychologist Code of Ethics and only admits exceptions in situations of risk to life set out in law. This website stores administrative data only: name, email, phone, and the history of appointments and payments. No session content is recorded here.

Yes, at any time, under the Brazilian data protection law. Write to contato@kellypsicologa.com.br. Some tax records must be kept for the period the law requires, and the privacy policy explains exactly which.