Dr. Cunningham is trained across the developmental lifespan. Although she loves little ones-she equally enjoys working with adults. Areas of care commonly include trauma/PTSD, childhood trauma, attachment disruptions, and coping/emotion regulation.

Dr. Cunningham is trained in infant mental health, which is a specific model of care focused on the developmental stages of birth to five. Common areas of treatment include attachment/bonding, understanding/managing differences in parent-child temperament, emotion regulation, behavioral management, and parent-child trauma work.

Dr. Cunningham works with children on learning their own nervous system. She encourages body awareness, somatic skills, and the parent-child attachment relationship as main players in treating childhood anxiety, depression, and behavioral difficulties.

Every family has a story. That story involves a lot of other different stories embedded inside. Dr. Cunningham provides attachment-focused and trauma-informed care for family units. Common areas of care include disrupted attachment, trauma, communication, role shifts, and emotional maturity/availability.

Dr. Cunningham utilizes both attachment-based and trauma-informed care models to support grief and loss. She works with individuals and families across a variety of loss experiences. Some areas of care include anticipation of loss of life due to a medical condition, pregnancy loss, stillbirth, infant, and child loss. Dr. Cunningham meets individuals and families wherever they are in their timeline of loss. At times she is able to partner with individuals and families to prepare and plan for loss of life and other times the connection is formed after the loss has occurred.

Prior to private practice, Dr. Cunningham worked often in the NICU and L&D inside the hospital. At Otterly Connected, Dr. Cunningham provides a select number of slots dedicated to fertility and NICU-related needs. Dr. Cunningham works with individuals and families impacted my medical emergencies related to the perinatal period. Common areas of care include trauma/PTSD, depression, anxiety, sleep, grief, bonding/attachment, and disruption to relationships.

In building her practice, Dr. Cunningham was so tired of child therapy feeling like another to-do list for parents. She provides parent-focused sessions that are only for parents. In these sessions-the goal is for parents to feel supported and held to regulate their nervous system while they work on regulating the nervous system of their little ones. Areas of care range widely depending on the needs of the child and the mental health of the parent.

Prior to building her private practice, Dr. Cunningham focused most of her efforts both clinically and research-wise on serving the medical community. The perinatal period is a vulnerable time for the nervous system. Dr. Cunningham supports pregnant individuals and their village around the perinatal period. Common areas of care include perinatal anxiety, perinatal depression, birth trauma, high-risk pregnancy, and management of occurring medical conditions. Non-pregnant partners welcome and encouraged to engage in services.

It was a tough decision for Dr. Cunningham to exit the hospital setting. There are so many needs related to attachment, trauma, and grief when it comes to medical complexities. Dr. Cunningham works with individuals and families on things such as navigating medical complexities to support adjustment to diagnosis, support processing of adjustment of family roles/identity, behavioral compliance for medication/therapy needs, and managing anxiety related to patient advocacy.