Katie Llewellyn, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor · Perinatal Mental Health Specialist · PSI-Trained
PERINATAL POSTPARTUM THERAPIST IN MILWAUKEE
Motherhood isn't what the pictures show. Katie knows that. She has spent over 12 years sitting with mothers in the moments that don't make it onto the highlight reel — the postpartum despair that arrived when joy was supposed to, the pregnancy loss that nobody knew what to say about, the relentless weight of raising a child with complex needs while trying to hold yourself together.
Her work is for the mothers who feel like they're failing at something everyone else seems to find natural. For the parents whose love for their child coexists with grief, rage, or a loneliness they can't quite name.
Katie brings something rare to this work — not just clinical training, but lived experience of her own. She understands from the inside what it means to navigate a child's medical complexity, to sit with uncertainty at 3am, to love fiercely and grieve quietly at the same time. Many parents find their way to her specifically because they are looking for someone who has been in the room — not just studied it.
You're not doing it wrong. You're doing something incredibly hard.
Treatment Approach
What Makes Katie Different
Katie's approach is warm, collaborative, and grounded in evidence-based care — adapted to the reality of what family life actually looks like. Sessions are a place to slow down, not perform. She doesn't expect you to arrive composed.
She completed advanced training through Postpartum Support International and brings over a decade of clinical experience across hospital, outpatient, and private practice settings. Her path into perinatal mental health began in a hospital room — a first encounter with a postpartum mother that changed the direction of her career.
She draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills — always in service of the person in front of her, not a predetermined protocol.
The grief doesn't shrink.
The jar gets bigger.
One of the most important things Katie offers parents — especially those raising children with disabilities or navigating ongoing medical complexity — is a different way of understanding grief.
Parents in this space are often told, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that they should be over it by now. That acceptance means the grief goes away. Katie's work is built on a different truth: The grief doesn't shrink. What grows is your capacity to hold it — the jar gets bigger, and life begins to fit around it rather than being consumed by it.
This isn't about moving on. It's about building a life large enough to carry both the love and the loss.
For parents who have been looking for someone who gets it
There is no formal certification for what Katie does with parents of disabled and medically complex children. The expertise she brings to this work comes from two places — her clinical training and her own life.
She understands the grief of the future you had imagined. The advocacy exhaustion. The way a single phone call from a specialist can undo an entire week. The guilt of needing a break from something you would never trade. The loneliness of sitting in a waiting room full of people who cannot possibly understand what your morning looked like.
She also understands that this love — complicated, exhausting, and profound as it is — deserves a space that can hold all of it without flinching.
Many parents find Katie because they have specifically been searching for a clinician with lived experience in this space. She is ready to meet you there.
Areas of Specialization
Postpartum depression & anxiety · Perinatal mood disorders · Pregnancy loss · Stillbirth · Infant loss · Fertility struggles · Unexpected prenatal diagnoses · Parenting children with disabilities · Parenting medically complex children · Caregiver burnout · Advocacy fatigue · Matrescence · Parenting stress · Birth trauma · NICU parents
Parenthood
Sexual abuse · Domestic violence · Childhood trauma · Emotional abuse · Physical abuse · Complex grief and loss · Grief after child loss · Suicide loss · Medical trauma · Complex PTSD
Trauma & Grief
Generalized anxiety · Performance anxiety · Social anxiety · Perfectionism · Depression · Postpartum rage · Identity shifts in parenthood · Life transitions · Burnout · Overwhelm
Anxiety & Depression
Treatment Modalities
Treatment may include but is not limited to:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) · Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) · Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills (DBT) · Trauma-informed care · Grief-informed care
You deserve support too.
Not just as a parent. As a person.
Katie is currently accepting new clients for in-person sessions in Wauwatosa and telehealth across Wisconsin.