Specialty · therapy for women
Therapy for women
A great many of the people I see are women, across the whole span from young adulthood into later life. That is a description of my practice rather than a boundary around it — my door is open more widely than this page — and it is worth naming, because a lot of what women bring here has been minimized somewhere else first.
Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.
What this work looks like with me
A common starting point is the load of being the person everyone relies on. You are the one who remembers the appointments, notices the mood in the room, absorbs the logistics, and gets described as capable — which functions as both a compliment and a job description. Competence is a real strength, and it can also become the reason nobody asks how you are, including you. We look at what it costs to be the reliable one, and at what would actually have to change for that to be less expensive.
Caregiving often runs in two directions at once. A parent needs more than they did, a child still needs what they always did, and the person in the middle absorbs both. That squeeze is not a personal failing of organization. It is a structural situation with real limits, and part of the work is telling the truth about the limits instead of treating them as something to out-manage.
Perimenopause and menopause come up frequently, partly because so many women arrive having already been dismissed. Sleep changed, temperature regulation changed, mood and memory and concentration changed, and somewhere along the way it was suggested that it was mostly stress. I do not prescribe or manage medication and I do not diagnose what is hormonal, but I take the symptoms seriously as real. And I encourage you to get help from your naturopath, integrative medicine practitioner, acupuncturist, primary care provider, or whomever else assists you with the physical aspects of hormonal change.
And there is a particular grief that shows up here often and rarely gets named: the unlived version of a life. The desired children who were not born, the forever life partner who did not happen, the career that was set aside, the city not moved to, the years given to something that did not return the investment. It is a real loss, and it deserves to be grieved rather than argued with.
We also work with body and self-worth, with relationships and boundaries, and with matrilineal patterns — the things handed down through a family's women without being discussed: what anger is allowed to look like, whose comfort matters, what a woman is supposed to endure without comment. Noticing an inherited pattern is not an indictment of your mother. It is what makes it possible to stop passing it along.
What women often bring here
Being the capable one
Everyone leans on you and nobody checks. We look at what the competence is costing and what could actually change.
Caregiving in both directions
A parent needing more, a child still needing everything. The squeeze in the middle, told honestly.
Perimenopause and menopause
Sleep, mood, memory, temperature — taken seriously rather than filed under stress.
Body and self-worth
Decades of commentary, internal and external. Work on the relationship rather than on the reflection.
Boundaries and relationships
Saying the true thing without rehearsing it for a week first, and surviving someone's disappointment.
Inherited patterns
What the women in your family passed down unspoken, and what you would like to stop handing on.
How we would work
We begin with a free 20-minute consult. You can ask about my approach, tell me as much or as little as you like, and decide afterward with no follow-up from me. Sessions are by secure video anywhere in California, which for a lot of women is the difference between therapy happening and therapy staying on the list — no drive, no waiting room, one hour that fits inside a real day.
The work usually moves between two levels: the immediate situation, and the pattern underneath it that keeps producing situations like it. My Positive Re-Narrative and Repatterning work sits at that second level. Alongside it we use somatic and nervous-system work for what the body is holding, mindfulness for the self-criticism, and IFS for the parts of you that disagree with each other about what you are allowed to want.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I do not treat bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, and I am not a crisis service. If you are in crisis, call or text 988, or call 911. Fees and cancellation terms are on the fees page.
- Individual, couples and family sessions
- Positive Re-Narrative and Repatterning
- Grief work, including non-death losses
- Somatic and nervous-system regulation
- Mindfulness practice and IFS
- EMDR certified, and certified hypnotherapist
Questions women ask before starting
- Is this about a specific issue or is it more general?
- Either. Some people come with one clearly bounded thing — a decision about a relationship, a stretch of insomnia, a conflict with a sister — and want focused work on it. Others come because the whole arrangement of their life has quietly stopped fitting and they cannot point to one cause. Both are workable. We do not need a tidy presenting problem before we can begin, and if a specific issue turns out to be the visible edge of something larger, we can follow it.
- I feel selfish taking this hour.
- That sentence comes up in this office more than almost any other, and it is worth looking at rather than talking you out of. Usually it belongs to a long-standing arrangement in which your needs are the ones that get postponed, and the guilt is the mechanism that keeps the arrangement running. I am not going to argue you into feeling entitled to the hour. What we can do is notice what the guilt is protecting, and whether the cost of that protection is still one you want to pay.
- Do you work with mothers and daughters?
- Yes. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and I work with individuals, couples and families, so a mother and adult daughter can meet with me together, and it is also common for one person to do individual work about the relationship while the other is not in the room. That second option is genuinely useful — a great deal can shift in a relationship when one person changes how she participates in it. We would talk in the consult about which shape fits what you are hoping for.
- I'm not in crisis — is that a good enough reason?
- It is a good reason, and it is often the better time. Therapy does not require a collapse as an entry fee. Plenty of the most productive work I do is with people who are functioning well by every visible measure and are tired of the effort it takes, or who want to understand a pattern before it costs them another decade. If you are in crisis I want you to have more immediate support than a scheduled hour: call or text 988, or call 911.
An hour that is yours
If you have been the capable one for a long time, book a free 20-minute consult or send a text. Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.