Therapy for Women in Oakland, CA

Anxiety and Depression in Women: It's Not Just In Your Head

You look like you’re holding it all together—but inside, something is unraveling.

You wake up with a heaviness in your chest, a quiet dread that you can’t quite name. You move through your day—working, caregiving, doing what’s expected—while a deeper voice inside you whispers: Is this all there is?

Maybe anxiety hums just beneath the surface. Maybe loneliness lingers, even in the presence of others. You’ve learned how to seem strong, capable, and composed. But inside, you feel stretched thin—disconnected, invisible, or quietly falling apart.

What you’re feeling is real. And it’s more common than you think.

Therapist for Women: A Relational, Depth-Oriented Approach

I’m Sara, a feminist depth psychotherapist in Oakland, CA. I work with women who are tired of carrying everything alone—women who are ready to explore their pain not as a problem to fix, but as a message worth listening to.

As a therapist for women, my work is grounded in deep listening, soulfulness, and slowness. This isn’t therapy that pressures you to be positive or pushes you to move on. This is therapy that honors your experience—your stories, your body, your emotions, and your truth.

Together, we move at the pace of trust. We follow what wants attention. We listen for what’s been silenced.

Therapy for Women: Healing the Hidden Wounds

So many women have been shaped by a world that asks us to disappear.

To silence our needs.

To smile when we’re in pain.

To be productive instead of present.

To hold everyone else—while no one holds us.

Maybe you were told you were too sensitive, too emotional, or too much. Maybe you learned to second-guess your instincts, override your body’s wisdom, or shape-shift to stay safe.

These aren’t flaws. They are survival strategies.

And they can be unlearned—with time, compassion, and support.

Women’s Counseling for Anxiety, Depression, and Emotional Overload

Women are often praised for being “high-functioning,” even as they suffer silently. You might appear calm and competent while secretly battling:

• Persistent worry or dread

• Irritability, overwhelm, or emotional exhaustion

• Shame, guilt, or self-doubt

• Trouble sleeping or relaxing

• Numbness or sadness that won’t go away

Maybe you’ve tried to explain how you feel—only to be dismissed. Told to “just relax,” “be grateful,” or “stop overthinking.”

But your feelings are valid. They are signals. And they deserve care, not minimization.

Healing the Mother Wound in Therapy for Women

Our early relationships—especially with a mother or mother figure—shape how we experience love, trust, and belonging.

Maybe your mother was anxious, critical, or emotionally absent. Maybe she needed you to take care of her. Maybe she loved you, but couldn’t see you.

These kinds of wounds are often invisible, but their impact is lifelong.

In therapy for women, we tend the mother wound with gentleness. We grieve what you didn’t receive. We learn how to offer yourself the love, protection, and presence that were missing.

In our work together, the therapeutic relationship becomes a space of repair—where you are seen, valued, and held in your wholeness.

Feminist Depth Therapy: A Soulful Approach to Women’s Counseling

As a feminist, Jungian therapist for women, I don’t view your pain as something purely cognitive or chemical. I see it as rooted in your lived experience—your body, your history, your relationships, and your soul.

This is therapy that goes beneath the surface. It’s not about coping better or thinking differently—it’s about reclaiming who you are beneath the roles, expectations, and wounds.

Together, we explore:

• The beliefs you’ve inherited about who you should be

• The grief you’ve carried alone

• The adaptations that once protected you but now feel constricting

• The longings and truths that live in your dreams, symptoms, and sensations

We welcome the unconscious—not as pathology, but as a rich source of healing.

What You May Be Carrying

I specialize in therapy for women navigating:

• Anxiety, depression & emotional overwhelm

• Burnout, people-pleasing & codependency

• Perfectionism, imposter syndrome & self-doubt

• Complex trauma & C-PTSD

• Sexual trauma, misogyny & internalized shame

• The mother wound & inner child work

• Motherhood, childlessness, & identity shifts

• Menopause, perimenopause & hormonal transitions

• Soul loss, spiritual disconnection & existential longing

• Chronic overgiving, boundary issues & emotional fatigue

You don’t need to justify your pain. If you’re feeling it, it matters.

Inner Child Healing and Complex Trauma in Therapy

Not all trauma looks dramatic. Many women carry complex trauma born of emotional neglect, unsafe relationships, or early parentification.

Maybe you were the “responsible one” growing up. The helper. The one who managed everything and asked for nothing.

You may now carry:

• A fear of being a burden

• Guilt for having needs

• Difficulty trusting or receiving care

• Overfunctioning & chronic self-reliance

• Emotional numbness, collapse, or dissociation

Through inner child work, we reconnect with the parts of you that were never held. We offer them what they needed then—attunement, presence, protection.

These exiled parts are not weaknesses. They are sacred. And with time, they become sources of resilience and truth.

Women’s Counseling for Life Transitions and Identity Changes

Being a woman often means enduring profound transitions with little support. Motherhood, menopause, divorce, loss, infertility, career shifts—these are soul-defining experiences.

And yet, the world often expects you to move through them without mess.

In women’s counseling, we create space to:

• Honor what is ending and what is emerging

• Grieve what was lost or never came

• Reconnect with the woman you’re becoming

• Explore the deeper meaning beneath the change

This is not therapy that fixes. It’s therapy that makes meaning—slowly, organically, through dreams, images, and deep inner listening.

Common Fears About Starting Therapy

“I should be able to handle this myself.”

You’ve handled so much already. But healing doesn’t have to be a solo act. You’re allowed to receive.

“What if I fall apart?”

Sometimes falling apart is the beginning of coming back together. You won’t have to do it alone.

“What if I don’t know how to feel?”

That’s okay. Together, we’ll listen to what your body and dreams are already trying to say.

“I’ve done therapy before. It didn’t help.”

Not all therapy goes deep. Depth therapy listens beneath the symptoms. It honors your inner world—and helps you make contact with your whole self.

Begin Therapy for Women in Oakland or Online in California

This isn’t about fixing you. It’s about freeing you—from shame, silence, self-blame, and the roles that no longer fit.

It’s about coming home to the truth of who you are.

If you’re quietly unraveling, or just longing to be more fully you, I’d be honored to walk alongside you.

Reach out when you’re ready. Let’s begin the journey back to yourself.

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