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 begin the day with a tightness in your chest, a quiet dread that’s hard to explain. You go through the motions—working, caregiving, doing what’s expected—while a deeper part of you wonders: Is this it? Is this all there is?

Anxiety hums beneath the surface. Loneliness feels heavy, even when you’re not alone. You’ve learned to perform your strength, but inside you feel stretched thin—disconnected, unseen, maybe even invisible.

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

Therapy for Women in Oakland and Throughout California

I’m Sara, a feminist depth psychotherapist based in Oakland, CA. I offer therapy for women who are tired of carrying everything alone—and who are ready to understand their pain in a deeper way.

This isn’t therapy that rushes to fix or judge. It’s therapy that listens—to your stories, your body, your emotions, and your soul.

We’ll move at the pace of trust. Slowly, safely, we’ll explore the patterns, beliefs, and unconscious wounds that are asking to be seen.

The Hidden Wounds Women Carry

Many women have been shaped by a world that taught us to disappear.

To shrink our needs.

To smile when we’re hurting.

To be productive instead of present.

To be everything for everyone else.

Maybe you were told you were “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” or “too much.” Maybe you learned to second-guess your instincts, silence your voice, or override your body’s signals.

These aren’t personal flaws. These are survival strategies—adaptations you developed to stay safe, loved, and accepted.

And they can be unlearned. With care. With time. With support.

Women’s Anxiety and Depression Are Often Misunderstood

Women are often praised for being high-functioning—even as they silently suffer.

You might look like you have it all together, while quietly battling:

• Persistent worry, tension, or dread

• Irritability or emotional overwhelm

• Shame, guilt, or self-doubt

• Trouble sleeping or relaxing

• Emotional numbness or sadness that doesn’t go away

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

But these feelings are signals—pointing to something deeper, something unspoken.

Healing the Mother Wound Through Depth Psychotherapy

Our earliest relationships shape our deepest beliefs about love, safety, and worth. For many women, the relationship with a mother figure is complex—marked by longing, emotional absence, or inherited pain.

Maybe your mother was overwhelmed, anxious, or emotionally unavailable. Maybe she relied on you to meet her needs, leaving yours unmet. Maybe she loved you, but didn’t know how to see you clearly.

This kind of wound runs deep. And so often, it goes unnamed.

Healing the mother wound means grieving what you didn’t receive. It means learning how to mother yourself in the ways you were never mothered.

In therapy, our relationship becomes a place of repair—a space where your needs are honored, your feelings make sense, and your wholeness is welcomed.

Feminist Depth Psychotherapy for Women: Listening to the Soul

As a feminist, Jungian depth therapist, I don’t believe your pain is just about brain chemistry or thought patterns. I believe it’s rooted in your story, your relationships, your body, your ancestors—and your soul.

This work isn’t about quick fixes. It’s about soul reclamation.

We explore:

• The beliefs you’ve internalized about who you have to be

• The grief you’ve carried silently for years

• The ways you’ve adapted to survive, and how those patterns now hold you back

• The parts of yourself that long to be seen, heard, and loved

In Jungian therapy for women, we work with the unconscious—not to pathologize you, but to listen. Dreams, body sensations, emotional reactions, and longings are welcomed in as messengers, not problems.

What You May Be Carrying

I specialize in therapy for women navigating:

• Anxiety, depression & emotional overwhelm

• Burnout & people-pleasing

• Perfectionism, self-doubt & imposter syndrome

• Complex trauma & C-PTSD

• Sexual trauma, misogyny & internalized shame

• The mother wound & inner child healing

• Motherhood, childlessness, or shifting identities

• Menopause, perimenopause & hormonal transitions

• Spiritual disconnection, soul loss, or existential longing

• Chronic overgiving, codependency & boundary challenges

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

Inner Child Work and Healing from Complex Trauma

Many women carry trauma that isn’t tied to a single event, but to years of emotional neglect, parentification, or unsafe relationships.

Maybe you felt like the “responsible one” growing up—the helper, the peacemaker, the one who held it all together.

This can lead to:

• A fear of being a burden

• Chronic guilt for having needs

• A deep longing to be held, but a fear of trusting others

• Perfectionism and overfunctioning

• Emotional shutdown or dissociation

Through inner child work, we begin to gently reconnect with the younger parts of you that were never seen. We offer them what they didn’t get—attunement, protection, understanding.

And with time, we begin to integrate these parts—not as weaknesses, but as sources of wisdom and wholeness.

Depth Therapy for Life Transitions and Identity Shifts

Being a woman often means navigating transitions alone.

Motherhood, loss, divorce, career shifts, infertility, menopause, perimenopause—these are soul-shaping experiences. Yet the world often expects you to move through them quietly, efficiently, and without mess.

Depth psychotherapy creates space to:

• Honor what’s ending, what’s emerging, and what’s uncertain

• Grieve what you’ve lost or never had

• Reconnect to who you are becoming

• Explore the deeper meaning behind these changes

We don’t rush to make meaning. We allow it to reveal itself—in dreams, images, emotions, and somatic experience.

Common Fears and Objections About Therapy

“I should be able to figure this out on my own.”

You’ve figured out so much already. But you don’t have to carry the healing alone. Therapy offers a new kind of relationship—one where you’re not performing, pleasing, or parenting. You just get to be.

“What if I fall apart?”

Falling apart is sometimes the first step toward coming back together. In this space, you don’t have to hold it all. I’ll hold it with you.

“What if I don’t know what I feel?”

You don’t need to. That’s the work. I’ll help you listen to the parts of you that already know—your body, your dreams, your symbols.

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

Many therapies stay on the surface. This one doesn’t. Depth work goes underneath the symptoms—to the root. It doesn’t rush, diagnose, or perform. It listens.

Reclaim Your Power and Come Home to Yourself

This work isn’t about fixing you. It’s about freeing you.

Freeing you from internalized stories that keep you small.

Freeing you from shame that was never yours to carry.

Freeing you to reconnect to the deepest parts of yourself.

If you’re quietly unraveling, therapy can help you remember who you are—beneath the expectations, the exhaustion, and the old roles you’ve outgrown.

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