Jennifer Hacker Pearson PhD

Hi, I’m Dr Jen!

I’m a PhD-qualified neuroscientist, psychotherapist, matrescence researcher, author, and international speaker.

To my 3 kids I am Mama. That’s my favourite title and also the most challenging one.

Motherhood has tested me in many ways. Not just the part of mothering my children, but how becoming a mother has changed me. Especially my brain and my mind.

I have been researching neuroplasticity - the brain’s ability to modify, change and adapt itself in both structure and function, as a result of our experiences and actions - for over 20 years.

Initially, largely on a micro level in medical research, and in the last decade mostly on a macro level and in private practice.

Specifically, I look at how matrescence – the developmental transition a woman goes through when she becomes a mother - affects a mother’s brain, and how we can use this life-changing transformation (and our very “plastic” brain) to our advantage, by intentionally and simply training our brain to thrive in motherhood.

I didn’t deliberately set out on this path. It was something that I unintentionally developed when I was strugglingly indescribably after I had my third baby. I was desperate for a solution to feel better in motherhood.

It was through my transition from struggling in motherhood to thriving that I learned: when we become mothers the brain changes are massive. Yet we are not taught this. We are not taught that these changes will affect us profoundly on a psychological level, and will therefore affect our wellbeing and our whole life.

While I have experience with writing (my neuroscience research was published in some of the top peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Neuroscience), I never intended to write I Wish Someone Had Told Me…

However, while having my own 3 kids, I realised a woman’s experience of labour, birth and the first few weeks postpartum affect our whole life. If we are uninformed and get caught off-guard during this life-changing experience, it affects our brain tremendously. The more prepared we can be for the transition into motherhood – matrescence – the better, as it allows us to intentionally shape our motherhood life.

For more information please visit www.DrJen.com.au