Most women arrive at perimenopause with no idea what’s happening to them. We can’t sleep, we can’t think straight, and our bodies start acting like someone else’s. Then we discover that everybody knew about this all along but didn’t mention it. Not our doctors, our mothers, our grandmothers. Some women have mild enough symptoms to get through perimenopause on their own, but most of us come to realize that we’re going to need some help. Hormones, pharmaceuticals, or supplements are crucial for the body, but they don’t always address the needs of our minds and hearts.

Therapy for menopause and perimenopause is focused on getting the emotional support and mindfulness and self-compassion tools we need to cope with one of the greatest endeavors we’ll face. We can foster a more loving relationship with ourselves and our bodies and feel the difference it makes to have our own backs.

It’s also a reframe. Women are done with seeing menopause as an ending and a loss. We know that it’s not a death, it’s a metamorphosis. By letting go of who we have been, we can become who we really want to be.

Therapy for menopause and perimenopause helps us:

• Develop acceptance, warmth, and kindness toward ourselves and our changing bodies.
• Foster emotional well-being. We can take care of our feelings rather than acting on them in ways that don’t help.
• Become more resilient and less reactive in the face of change, challenge, and menopause symptoms.
• See menopause as a wave we can ride toward self-actualization.