Jessica Tomich Sorci ’09 (Los Angeles, CA) graduated from Antioch in 2009 while six months pregnant with her daughter and experienced firsthand the challenges of early motherhood and postpartum adjustment. That lived experience became the foundation of her work. She went on to establish a group practice specializing in maternal mental health and has since developed resources to support both mothers and the clinicians who care for them.
Sorci is the founder of the Mothercentered Certification Program, a professional training that teaches the Mom Parts Method—an Internal Family Systems-informed approach to maternal mental health. The certification includes a 15-hour foundational training, a six-month consultation continuum, and advanced training modules. Certified practitioners learn to help mothers shift from “there’s something wrong with me” to “this is difficult for me,” by understanding protective parts (such as Inner Critics, Resentment, Guilt, and Rage) alongside vulnerable parts (including the Inner Baby) and the healing presence of the Inner Mom. Practitioners who complete the program are listed in a directory and become part of a community committed to advancing a new framework for maternal mental health.
She also created the Mom Parts Community, an online space where mothers can explore their internal systems, normalize the full spectrum of maternal experience (including the “unacceptable” parts), and connect with others who share the belief that good mental health is not the absence of struggle, but the quality of relationship a person has with themselves.
Her book, When Good Moms Feel Bad: An Empowering Guide for Transforming Guilt, Anxiety and Anger into Compassion, Confidence and Connectedness, was published in May 2025. The book introduces the concept of “Mom Parts,” a predictable set of protective and vulnerable parts that can emerge during matrescence and persist through motherhood, and offers practical tools, journaling prompts, and exercises for moments when mothers feel overwhelmed, like failures, or are navigating grief and shame.
Sorci will teach Mothercentered in Los Angeles in April 2026 in collaboration with Maternal Mental Health Now.
