Dr. Sheryl Ziegler is the best-selling author of Mommy Burnout, the podcast host of Dr. Sheryl’s PodCouch, a regular national and local news contributor and runs a private group practice in Denver, CO. She is also a national and international presenter on topics related to stress, parenting, mental health and burnout as well as a Tedx speaker.

From Mommy Burnout:

“When you work with children, you have to work with their parents to fully engage. For some therapists that is a challenge—but for me it is my passion. 

Early in my career, I came to understand that the New York City youth that I was counseling in upstate New York would be going back to the same home they came from after they completed the program. I realized that much of the work that we were doing would have little influence over them when back in the chaos and poverty they were coming from. When I was accepted into a doctoral program in Colorado, I knew I wanted to keep working to help children, but that I also wanted to understand the systems that affect those children—family systems, community systems, and employment systems. 

While gaining this understanding, I shifted my focus away from just children, to families. And as such, in the past fourteen years I have come to understand the plight of the American mother very well through my work. I have celebrated with, cried with, and mourned with thousands of mothers. I have experienced my own journey of motherhood in richer ways because of this connection to women, all that they endure, and how big they love. 

I was born in Harlem, to a teenage immigrant single mother. As a young child, I lived on welfare and food stamps in New York City. I have experienced all levels of disadvantage. I have lived a middle-class life in upstate New York and I have lived an upper-middle-class life. I received higher education after being awarded a full scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. My experiences have given me the comfort to relate to just about anyone, and I work every day to make good on the promise I made to myself and my scholarship funders: that I would pay forward the gifts I have been bestowed any way I can.”