Therapy for Parents In Pasadena, California

Parenting in the Middle

Therapy for Parenting Stress, Anxiety, and Midlife Burnout

The Overlooked Season of Overwhelm, Identity Shifts, and Inner Pressure.

Parenting in the middle is the in-between stage of raising children. Your kids are growing and changing, your role is shifting, and you may find yourself wondering where you fit in all of it.

You’re no longer at the beginning of motherhood — when everything felt new and structured — but you’re not at the end either. You’re in the thick of it. The constant demands of parenting, shifting family dynamics, growing children, and evolving identities can begin to blur together. Many women in this stage also find themselves part of the “sandwich generation” — caring for aging parents while still parenting their own children — emotionally holding multiple generations at once. And underneath it all is often a quiet question: Am I doing enough? Am I getting this right?

For many high-achieving moms, this season of life brings more than stress and burnout. It can also bring an identity shift that often goes unseen. You may be navigating perimenopause or midlife changes while your children are moving through emotional and developmental transitions of their own. It can feel like everyone in the family is changing at once.

So much of the focus stays on the children — their needs, emotions, and milestones — while the mother in the middle of it all is often overlooked. If you’re feeling emotionally exhausted, anxious, burned out, or disconnected from yourself, you’re not alone. Therapy for moms and support for high-achieving women can offer space to slow down, reconnect with yourself, and feel supported during this demanding season of life.

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A Deeper Understanding of Children, Teens, and Families

My work with parents comes from both sides—My background in working with children and teens as a school counselor, and being a parent of teenagers myself. I know how much is going on beneath the surface in families, even when it doesn’t always look obvious from the outside. Often, it’s the parent who’s carrying the most stress. And when they start to feel more supported and grounded, things at home can begin to shift too - including the challenges they’re seeing in their child or teen.

So in our work, we slow things down and look at the bigger emotional system, what’s happening with your child, what’s happening around you, and what’s getting activated inside of you, too.

How therapy can support you

Manage Emotional Overwhelm- Feel more grounded and less emotionally stretched in your day-to-day life.
Strengthen family connection - Improve communication in your family and feel closer to one another
Parent with greater empathy - Better understand your child or teen’s emotional world while responding with more compassion toward yourself, too.
Navigate midlife transitions - Move through identity shifts, changing family roles, and life transitions with greater clarity and self-trust
Quiet the Inner Critic- Get relief from the constant pressure, guilt, self-doubt, and feeling that you should always be doing more.
Process Grief and Change - Watching your children grow up while your parents age can bring real grief for what’s passing. Therapy can help you make space for those emotions and navigate anticipatory grief with support and care.

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My Approach to Working
with Mothers and Parents

In our work together, we make space for you

I approach parenting from a relational lens, which means we look at how patterns are showing up not just within you, but between you and your child, and within your partnership if that’s part of your life. We also use psychoeducation to help you understand what’s happening emotionally and in your nervous system, so your reactions and your child’s responses start to make more sense.

We explore the different parts of you that show up in parenting—the part trying to hold everything together, the part carrying guilt or self-doubt, the part that feels overwhelmed or shuts down, and the inner critic that often runs in the background.

Over time, this work helps you step out of reactive cycles and into a more grounded way of relating, both with your child and your partner. Not from getting it perfect, but from understanding what’s happening in the system and responding with more clarity and presence.

I integrate:

Parts work / inner child work to help you understand your emotional landscape
EMDR therapy for past experiences that still feel stuck in your body or mind
Attachment-focused therapy to support healing from relational wounds that may be showing up as a parent
Somatic awareness to help you feel more grounded and less overstimulated.