Menopause | Mental Health Therapy | Anxiety, Depression & the Wisdom of Aging

Your body isn’t betraying you. It’s changing the whole conversation.

Nobody warned you about the rage.

Or maybe they did – in brief derogatory comments, or in passing, the way people mention menopause as a punchline rather than a genuine upheaval. Hot flashes, sure. Night sweats, fine. But the anxiety that arrives out of nowhere at 3am? The flatness, the irritability, the sense that you’ve somehow lost the sense of who you are? The way you can go from completely fine to absolutely done with everyone in the span of one conversation?

That’s not in the brochure. And it’s absolutely not talked about enough even in therapy offices.

Menopause Is a Mental Health Event

Perimenopause and menopause are not just physical transitions. The hormonal shifts of this stage of life directly affect brain and body chemistry – including the neurotransmitters that regulate mood, sleep, anxiety, and cognitive function. What this means in practice is that women in their 40s and 50s are often dealing with genuine neurological changes on top of everything else life is throwing at them: career pivots, aging parents, children leaving home, relationship changes, questions of identity and purpose that don’t have easy answers.

The mental health side of menopause is wildly undertreated. Many women are told their anxiety or depression is situational – “you have a lot going on” – when there’s actually a hormonal component that deserves to be taken seriously. Others are prescribed antidepressants without anyone exploring whether this is, in part, a perimenopause presentation. Some are simply told, “well, that’s just to be expected at your age.” The degree to which these experiences undermine our ability to choose next steps routinely astonishes me. 

I’m not a medical provider and I don’t prescribe. What I do is take the whole picture seriously – the biology, the psychology, and the lived experience of being a woman in midlife who is changing in ways that our culture mostly pathologizes or ignores. And I validate and support. The arc of menstruation in a woman’s life is a profound one, and honoring what each stage has to offer is vital. 

What I Bring to This Work

I’m almost 60. I’ve lived this. I know what it is to be in the thick of it – the sleep disruption, the identity questions, the grief of some things ending, the strange exhilaration of others beginning. I’m pro-age in the most literal sense: I believe this stage of life carries real wisdom, and that the task isn’t to white-knuckle through symptoms until it’s over, but to actually move through the transformation it’s asking of you.

That might sound more philosophical than clinical. It’s both. I work with evidence-based therapeutic approaches – somatic therapy, CBT tools, nervous system regulation, inner child work – and I hold them inside a framework that respects the deeper meaning of what midlife is asking women to integrate.

What We Might Work On Together

• Anxiety and panic that have intensified or begun during perimenopause.
• Depression, flatness, or a loss of pleasure in things that used to matter.
• Rage – the kind that surprises you, that doesn’t feel “like you,” that you’re ashamed of and also kind of respect.
• Sleep disruption and its downstream effects on mood, cognition, and relationships.
• Identity questions: who am I now that I’m not the person I’ve been performing for the last several decades?
• The grief of endings — reproductive, relational, professional, physical. The excitement (and terror) of what might come next.

Sessions & Availability

Sessions are virtual, 55 minutes, $180, self-pay only. I am not paneled with insurance. I’m licensed in Indiana, California, and Texas. I work exclusively with women over 40 – not because I think younger women don’t deserve good care, but because the terrain of midlife requires a specific kind of presence. I’m not going to rush you through this. I’m not going to tell you it gets easier without acknowledging how hard it is right now.

You Deserve Support That Actually Gets It

If you’ve been trying to explain what’s happening to people who keep suggesting yoga and magnesium, you’re in the right place. Book a free  consultation and let’s figure out together whether working with me makes sense.