The Lindsay Clancy Case: When a Tragedy Becomes a Call to Do Better for Mothers
The Lindsay Clancy case is devastating. Three children lost their lives. A father lost his children and the life he knew. A mother will live with consequences that are almost impossible to comprehend. Families have been shattered.
There is no winner here.
I think it’s important to say this first: this case has sparked strong opinions about guilt, mental illness, medication, responsibility, postpartum depression, and postpartum psychosis. But as a therapist, I find myself focusing on something else:
How can we do better?
Not just in the most severe or rare cases. How can we do better for the mother in her OB’s office saying she doesn’t feel like herself? For the woman who marks a few concerning answers on a postpartum screening? For the husband who senses something is wrong but isn’t sure if it’s just exhaustion or something more serious?
Pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period are very complicated times in a woman’s life. I don’t think our system always gives them the attention and understanding they deserve.
Screening Should Be the Beginning of a Conversation
We have screening tools for postpartum depression and other maternal mental health concerns. Screening is important. But giving someone a questionnaire is not the same as truly understanding how they are doing.
When I use screening tools with clients, I believe the answers should create a conversation.
Why did you choose that answer?
What does that look like at home?
When did you start feeling this way?
Is this different from who you normally are?
Are there thoughts you’re afraid to tell someone about?
Do you feel like yourself?
A score can give us helpful information, but it can’t tell us the whole story of the person in front of us. When we talk through the questions, we also show that it’s safe to share what’s really going on.
A mother might be scared to admit she’s struggling. She may worry people will think she’s a bad mom. She might downplay what she’s feeling because she thinks this is just how motherhood is supposed to be. We need to listen to the story behind the checkbox.
Bring the People Who Love Her Into the Conversation
When it’s appropriate and the client agrees, I think it can really help to involve someone close to her in her care. Sometimes the people who live with us notice changes we don’t see ourselves.
A partner might say:
“She hasn’t slept.”
“She’s not acting like herself.”
“She’s normally incredibly organized, and suddenly she can’t make simple decisions.”
“She’s constantly afraid something will happen to the baby.”
“She keeps telling me something is wrong.”
That information is important. It doesn’t mean the loved one is the expert on the client. It just gives us another perspective. Maternal mental health care shouldn’t happen alone.
Build a Team You Can Trust
I also believe it’s important to build a team you can trust. Building good relationships and trust is everything.
Doctors and therapists don’t always talk to each other, and honestly, I find that strange. We notice different things and have different relationships with the client. A doctor might see changes in sleep, medication response, physical symptoms, or behavior during a visit. A therapist might hear about fears, thoughts, and experiences the client isn’t ready to share elsewhere. A partner or family member might notice changes at home that neither provider sees.
When we talk to each other, we can put those pieces together. That’s how I work. I want everyone involved in a client’s care to share information, ask questions, and notice patterns together, with the client’s knowledge and consent, and while respecting privacy and professional boundaries.
Honestly, it can be hard to connect with other providers. Doctors and therapists often have different systems, schedules, and demands. We might not get paid for the time it takes to call each other, coordinate care, or send updates. Sometimes we do this on our own time. But it helps us see things we might miss on our own. It can help us notice when a symptom is changing, when a treatment isn’t working, when a client is downplaying what’s happening, or when a loved one’s concern needs more attention.
No single provider can see the whole picture. A strong team doesn’t mean everyone has the same role. It means each person brings a different perspective, and those perspectives are connected instead of kept separate. Trust doesn’t mean we always agree. It means we believe we’re all working toward the same goal: the client’s safety, dignity, and well-being.
“We’re on a Journey Together”
One of the things I frequently tell my clients is: We’re on a journey together, and you are the expert on your experience.
I know this way of thinking sometimes challenges the traditional medical or mental health model. As providers, we have education and training. We understand diagnosis, research, the nervous system, medications, interventions, and treatment. We have a call to do better for mothers. That expertise matters.
But the person sitting across from us has expertise too. They are the ones living it every day. They know what it feels like to wake up in their body each morning. They know which symptoms scare them. They know when something feels very different. They know what is working and what isn’t.
My job isn’t to stand above a client and tell them what their experience is. My job is to bring my education and clinical perspective, while they bring their lived experience, and then we work together to decide what comes next.
That same idea applies to the treatment team. The doctor brings one kind of expertise. The therapist brings another. The client knows best what it’s like to live through the experience. Family members may notice things in daily life.
Good care makes room for all of that information. That doesn’t mean clinicians stop using their judgment. Sometimes safety concerns mean we need to step in, assess risk, involve more support, or recommend a higher level of care. Collaboration and clinical responsibility go hand in hand. I believe good care needs both.
Mothers Are People, Not Diagnoses
This is one of the biggest lessons I keep coming back to when I think about this case. We have to see people as people, not just as clients, diagnoses, symptoms, or scores. We also need to recognize that motherhood, especially pregnancy and the postpartum period, is a very complex biological, psychological, and social transition.
A woman can deeply love her children and still struggle. She can be grateful for her baby and still feel depressed. She might look like she’s doing well but be falling apart inside. She can know something is wrong without having the words to explain it. Sometimes the most important thing a provider can do is be curious instead of assuming we know the answer.
“Tell me more.” Those three words can be incredibly powerful.
This Isn’t About Winning, It's a Call to Do Better for Mothers
I don’t want conversations about the Lindsay Clancy case to become another battle where we choose teams. There are three children at the center of this story who lost their lives. There is a father whose children are gone. There is a mother whose life and family were forever altered. There are extended families carrying unimaginable grief.
Everyone loses.
We cannot undo what happened. But we can allow tragedy to make us more curious about the systems surrounding mothers.
Are we screening enough?
When we screen, are we actually talking about the answers?
Are women afraid to tell us what they’re experiencing?
Do partners and family members know what warning signs to look for?
Do providers have enough education about perinatal mental-health disorders?
Are we listening when a woman tells us something feels wrong?
Are doctors and therapists communicating with one another?
Are we making it possible for providers to coordinate care, even when that time is not reimbursed?
Do the people involved in a mother’s care trust one another enough to share concerns?
And perhaps most importantly:Do the mothers we serve feel like they are part of their own treatment—or like treatment is simply happening to them?
These are questions worth asking. Not because answering them will explain every aspect of this case. It won’t. But because somewhere today there is another mother struggling. Maybe she isn’t in crisis. Maybe she is simply exhausted, anxious, disconnected, depressed, frightened by her thoughts or wondering why motherhood doesn’t feel the way she expected it to.
She deserves more than just a checkbox. She deserves someone who will sit with her and ask what’s really happening. She deserves to be taken seriously. She deserves clinicians who bring their expertise but also respect hers. She deserves a team that communicates, works together, and trusts each other. She deserves a system that sees her as a person before a diagnosis.
Maybe that’s one of the most meaningful ways we can respond to a tragedy like this—not by trying to decide who “wins” the argument, but by remembering why so many of us chose this work in the first place: to help people, to listen, to understand, and to ask how we can do better when our systems fall short.
Holistic Hive Co.
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