Women's Therapy
The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.
CARL JUNG
The World Has Opinions About You
There’s no single way to be a woman, but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone from having opinions about what we should be like.
Be capable, but don’t be a know it all. Speak up, but don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Be ambitious, but don’t be pushy. Have needs, but be discreet about them. Be confident, attractive, successful, attentive, independent, generous, and just make it work.
You don’t necessarily notice many of these expectations as expectations at all – it just feels like that’s the way things are.
There’s so much more to it than that though.
You can love taking care of your family. Treasure your solo life. Value being someone others can count on. Take pride in your work. Keep traditions that connect you to a sense of meaning. Feel deeply attached to the parts of being a woman that are important to who you are.
You can also deeply value something and still struggle with how much it requires of you.
In therapy, we can look at which expectations fit with how you want to live, which ones don’t, and how your own needs fit with the responsibilities you value.
When Everyone Else Gets a Vote
You’re deciding what you want to do, and almost immediately you’re thinking about how everyone else will react.
Will she be mad?
Is he going to think I’m leading him on?
I’m too busy to attend, but I told everyone I would be there.
It would be easier if I just agreed.
Maybe I’m overreacting.
Being thoughtful about other people is a good thing. Relationships require compromise. Families depend on one another. Workplaces require cooperation. Sometimes another person really does need more from you for a while.
But other people’s needs, reactions, preferences, and comfort can guide your choices so automatically that you barely notice it happening.
You know what would make things easier for everyone. You know how someone is likely to react.
Then someone asks what you want.
It can be hard to make a choice based on what you want when everyone else’s vote has already become part of the answer.
Existing as Women
Some experiences become ordinary because they happen so often.
Vigilance and safety calculations. Being looked at and evaluated. Beauty conferring advantages while also attracting attention that may be intrusive or unsafe. Aging changing how visible you are to other people. Having physical experiences that are common among women treated as things you’re simply expected to tolerate. Being underestimated or dismissed.
Being repeatedly dismissed can affect how you enter situations where you need something from another person. Maybe you overprepare. Maybe you expect not to be believed. Maybe you’re furious before the conversation begins. Maybe you’re remarkably effective at advocating for yourself and completely exhausted by having to do it.
And then there are our relationships with other women.
Competition and comparison. Belonging and friendship. Trust, solidarity, asking for help, receiving help. Other women enforcing expectations. Other women recognizing your predicament in half a second and quietly moving in to help.
Therapy can’t give you control over experiences that were never yours to control.
It can help you have more choices in how you respond to them and what happens next.
When You’re Supposed to Be the Capable One
There are advantages to being good at noticing what needs to happen.
You remember the appointment. You see the change in someone’s mood. You think ten steps ahead. You catch the error everyone else missed. You know which conversation needs to happen and which problem will become a bigger one if nobody handles it.
People learn that they can count on you. And you know you can handle a lot.
I can do this.
It’ll be faster if I just take care of it.
It really is no problem.
Everyone has a lot going on.
So you take on one more thing (again).
Some of this is invisible labor: the noticing, remembering, planning, and following up that becomes part of your mental load as you take on things that increasingly become yours to handle.
Being capable is a strength. But “I can do this” and “This should be my responsibility” are not the same thing.
Choosing a life role doesn’t mean that every responsibility it entails should automatically belong to you.
What Is Yours
We start with what brings you in.
We can pay attention to what’s happening, what you notice, what you feel responsible for, and what becomes important as we go.
Over time, you can get better at discerning what you think, what you want, what your limits are, and what you want to do with that information.
You don’t have to reject the roles you treasure in order to have more choice within them. And you don’t have to keep accepting something simply because it has always seemed like part of the deal.
The world will continue to have opinions about what your life should look like. You get to have more say in how you live it.
Get started here
Complete the secure inquiry form below and I’ll personally respond within one business day. We’ll schedule a brief consultation call where you can share a general sense of what brings you to therapy, ask questions about my approach, and decide whether working together feels right for you.
You may also be interested in learning more about:
Mental load is more than a long to-do list. It’s the invisible responsibility of noticing, planning, remembering, and making sure life works. Learn why that burden can feel so unfair and exhausting and how to protect time that deserves to matter just as much as everyone else’s.
Worry often begins as an attempt to stay prepared and prevent problems. Learn why it can become so difficult to stop worrying, and how to build greater confidence in your ability to cope with life’s uncertainties.
Healthy boundaries aren’t meant to push people away. They help protect your time, energy, choices, and needs so that your relationships can be built on clarity, respect, and genuine connection.
Licensed Professional Counselor
Cheryl Zandt
Telehealth Counseling in Washington DC and Virginia
Cheryl Zandt is a Licensed Professional Counselor providing online therapy for women in Virginia and Washington, DC. For more than 20 years, she has helped women face anxiety, burnout, panic, relationship challenges, and life transitions with greater understanding, self-trust, and choice.
Thoughtful, collaborative, and grounded in research, curiosity, and genuine human connection, her approach helps clients make sense of experiences that have felt confusing, frustrating, or overwhelming for far too long.
Your questions, answered
Why do I feel like I should be able to handle everything myself?
Many women carry an unspoken belief that being competent means being able to manage everything without support. Over time, that expectation can become exhausting and isolating. Therapy offers an opportunity to examine where that belief came from and whether it’s serving you as well as it once did.
Is it selfish to prioritize my own needs?
This is one of the most common fears women express in therapy. In reality, healthy self-care and healthy boundaries are not the same thing as selfishness. Caring about yourself and caring about others are not opposing goals. Therapy can help you build a relationship with yourself that includes both.
Can therapy help me feel more like myself again?
Yes. Many women come to therapy because they feel disconnected from parts of themselves that once felt important—curiosity, creativity, confidence, joy, purpose, or simply a sense of knowing who they are. Therapy creates space to reconnect with those parts of yourself and make room for them in your life again.
What issues do women commonly bring to therapy?
Every person’s experience is different, but common concerns include anxiety, burnout, self-criticism, perfectionism, people-pleasing, relationship challenges, life transitions, stress, difficulty setting boundaries, and feeling disconnected from themselves or their goals.
How do I know if my expectations of myself are realistic?
One clue is whether your expectations consistently leave you feeling inadequate, drained, or as though nothing you do is ever enough. Therapy can help you examine the rules you’re living by and determine whether they’re helping you grow or simply keeping you stuck in self-criticism.