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Phyllis Klaus MFT, LMSW is a licensed psychotherapist, marriage & family therapist, and social worker. 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. 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; 6) methods of pain relief in labor with self-hypnosis. In addition, Klaus has a general practice and 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. She is the co-author of several articles as well as Mothering the Mother, Your Amazing Newborn, Bonding, The Amazing Talents of the Newborn, The Doula Book, and When Survivors Give Birth.

Darcy Stanley is a Bay Area native who, as a Quaker, was raised around social activists and has been involved in progressive work involving the criminal justice system with the American Friends Service Committee. She comes from a family of teachers and was taught that one of the greatest things a person can do is be of service. She has been a doula since 2010 and is grateful to have started her doula career as a volunteer at San Francisco General Hospital. When she learned about the lack of support that pregnant incarcerated people receive she knew that her passion for working with mothers and children and her deep concern for social justice had led her to a place where she could truly be of service. As Co-Director of the Birth Justice Project, she is called to create a community of doulas who are transformed and healed by the work they do while providing a much needed service to the communities they serve. She is also a nursing student at Cal State East Bay and hopes to continue her education and become a Certified Nurse Midwife and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner.