Women’s Mental Health
Some stages of life affect far more than your physical health
Fertility. Pregnancy. Becoming a parent. Postpartum changes. Perimenopause.
These experiences can affect your body, certainly—but they can also affect your mood, relationships, sense of identity, confidence, work, sexuality, sleep, and the way you feel about yourself.
And sometimes the emotional impact catches you completely off guard.
You may have expected to feel excited and instead feel anxious. You may have worked desperately toward becoming pregnant only to find the experience emotionally complicated once it happens. You may love your baby and still find early parenthood incredibly difficult.
Or perhaps you've reached your 40s or 50s and suddenly don't feel quite like yourself—and no one seems to be talking about it.
We provide a compassionate place to talk about the psychological and emotional experiences that can accompany different stages of women’s lives.
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Trying to become pregnant can begin with excitement and gradually become something that seems to take over your life.
Appointments, waiting, testing, tracking, hope, disappointment and uncertainty can create an emotional cycle that other people may struggle to understand.
Therapy can provide support for experiences including:
Fertility difficulties
Fertility treatment
Anxiety during the "two-week wait"
Pregnancy loss
Repeated disappointment
Deciding whether to continue fertility treatment
Differences between partners in coping with fertility challenges
Pregnancy after fertility difficulties or loss
The impact of fertility struggles on relationships, work and everyday life
Grieving the family-building experience you expected to have
Sometimes what you need isn't another person telling you to "stay positive."
You need somewhere you can be honest about how difficult this is.
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Pregnancy can bring joy, uncertainty, anxiety and enormous change—sometimes all at once.
You might experience anxiety about your health or your baby's health, fear about childbirth, changes in body image, uncertainty about becoming a parent, changes in your relationship, or difficulty adjusting to a pregnancy that doesn't feel the way you expected it to.
Therapy can give you room to explore those feelings without requiring you to feel grateful or excited every moment simply because the pregnancy was wanted.
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There can be an enormous gap between the cultural image of new parenthood and the reality of living it.
Sleep deprivation. Recovery. Feeding. Crying. Responsibility. Changes in your relationship. Changes in your body. Less independence. Less time. And suddenly being responsible for a person you love more than you can describe.
It's a lot.
Some new parents experience significant anxiety or depression. Others simply find the transition far more emotionally difficult than they anticipated.
You may be experiencing:
Postpartum anxiety or persistent worry
Low mood or feeling disconnected
Feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility of parenthood
Difficulty adjusting to changes in identity
Guilt about not enjoying parenthood enough
Perfectionism around parenting
Relationship changes after having a baby
Loneliness or isolation
Difficulty asking for help
Feeling as though everyone else's transition to parenthood looks easier than yours
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For many women, perimenopause arrives during an already demanding stage of life.
Careers may be at their busiest. Children may still need you—or may be leaving home. Parents may be aging. Relationships may be changing.
And then your body begins changing too.
Hormonal changes during perimenopause can coincide with changes in mood, anxiety, sleep, concentration and emotional regulation. For some women, the experience can feel bewildering—particularly when they previously felt emotionally steady.
Therapy doesn't replace appropriate medical assessment or treatment for menopausal symptoms. But it can provide meaningful support for the psychological experience of this transition.
“I am rooted, but I flow.”