Phyllis Klaus

Phyllis Klaus, MFT, LCSW, has specialized in the perinatal period for 30 years. She consults nationally and internationally and is co-author of Bonding, Your Amazing Newborn, The Doula Book, and When Survivors Give Birth. 

Phyllis Klaus is a licensed psychotherapist and social worker. She teaches and practices at the Milton H. Erickson Institute in Santa Rosa, California, and also practices in Berkeley, California, providing psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and counseling to individuals, couples, families, children and groups. She has worked with the concerns, both medical and psychosocial, of pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period for the past 30 years, and has been involved in research and training of maternity caregivers. 

She is also a founder of DONA International.

She is a National Board Certified Fellow in Clinical Hypnotherapy and Fellow in the American Psychotherapy Association, as well as the American Academy of Experts of Traumatic Stress. She is an EMDR Institute Facilitator, and Trainer, an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and has incorporated EMDR into her work for the past 17 years. She consults and presents lectures and workshops on psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and EMDR nationally and internationally.

Areas of Focus

Much of her clinical management in the perinatal period has focused on the following: 
  1. women with a history of childhood sexual abuse and its effects on childbearing; 
  2. the use of hypnosis and brief psychotherapy to alleviate clinical symptoms of pregnancy such as premature labor, hyperemesis gravidarum, bleeding; and the psychological issues of anxiety and depression; 
  3. attachment disorders; 
  4. issues of birth trauma and loss; 
  5. postpartum mood disorders; and 
  6. methods of pain relief in labor with self-hypnosis.

In addition, she has a general practice with extensive experience working with grief and loss; trauma; abuse; dissociative disorders; anxiety; depression; somatic and medical disorders and conditions; family of origin; attachment and parent-child issues.

Conferences and Talks

The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health
  • Helping Women after a Traumatic or Negative Childbirth
  • Therapy and Birth Issues
  • David Cheek Memorial Lecture: Phyllis Klaus
  • Phyllis Klaus: The Use of Hypnosis and Brief Psychotherapy to Alleviate Medical and Psychological Complications of Pregnancy
EMDR Mini-conference
April 10,  2010 at Oakland's Preservation ParkThe Use of EMDR in Somatic and Medical Problems: Special Emphasis on Early Life Influences
Clients facing medical or somatic conditions may present for psychotherapy with fears about the illness, anxiety about treatment, trepidation about the medical system, and concern about their ability to heal. Many clients suffer from chronic conditions, which undermine their lives, leaving them feeling less functional than desired. Some conditions may be the result of somatization due to childhood trauma, chronic stress, long-term interpersonal problems, or maladaptive patterns established early in life. Therapy includes several levels of investigation, including current and past symptom and psychosocial history. Clinicians will learn about a multilayered approach to explore and develop targets for EMDR processing as well as protocols for healing.
2009 Symposium "Making Healthy Babies, Raising Healthy Children: Living Well in a Toxic World"Session Two: The Birth Experience

Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD, medical anthropologist and author of eight books including Birth as an American Rite of Passage, presents a brief history of birth in the USA. This presentation will focus on women’s ideas and cultural values about childbirth. The session concludes with a panel consisting of Dr. Davis-Floyd; Elizabeth Davis, a Certified Professional Midwife, who will touch on an integrated view of birth; and pediatrician Dr. Marshall Klaus and his wife, Phyllis Klaus C.S.W., M.F.C.C., who discuss the care and support a woman needs during birth. A new film by Diana Paul of Sage Femme will introduce this session.