The tree's unseen roots reach farther than its branches. Depth versus surface steadies the tree. Us too.

 Depth Oriented Recovery Work:  A Psychotherapist’s Reflection

Summary

Many modern treatment programs promise eating disorder recovery through rapid symptom control, cognitive techniques, or medication. But beneath the visible patterns of restriction, bingeing, and purging lie psychic wounds that cannot be managed into healing. This essay explores why depth-oriented recovery work remains essential—and how genuine transformation arises not from control, but from contact with the self that the disorder once protected.

Main Article (1,650 words)

The Age of Quick Fixes

After forty years of sitting with people who struggle to make peace with their bodies and their hungers, I find myself both grateful for modern progress and uneasy with its direction. The eating disorder field now emphasizes techniques—CBT worksheets, exposure hierarchies, and medical management—designed to regulate behavior and thought. Insurance companies, research protocols, and even the language of recovery have followed suit.

A woman may learn to eat three balanced meals and two snacks, replace “distorted cognitions,” and identify her triggers. She may even achieve some symptom remission. But often she remains at war with herself in subtler ways—haunted by shame, restlessness, a desire to participate in mild to severe self-harm activities, and a persistent fear of being seen. These inner fractures, once the source of her eating disorder symptoms, now live silently beneath her new routines. When they emerge and she binges, restricts, or vomits, she holds on to the diagnosis that this behavior is not serious if it happens only once or twice a month. She experiences a kind of cognitive distortion and a sense of lying to herself because she knows those behaviors are not correct, are not recovery, and are always lurking, ready to emerge when her pressures or triggers are too intense for her to bear.

Depth work begins where the manualized approaches end.

When Treatment Forgets the Soul: the need for depth oriented recovery work

The shift toward evidence-based therapy has helped thousands stabilize, but it has also quietly exiled the psyche. In most treatment centers, a woman’s dreams, memories, and symbolic inner life are often viewed as distractions from measurable outcomes. Her eating disorder is framed as a problem to be managed, not a language to be understood.

This neglect is not malicious—it is cultural. We live in an era where recovery is often equated with productivity. The goal is to return quickly to function, to “move on,” to perform wellness. But psychic healing unfolds differently. It is cyclical, imaginal, and mysterious. It requires time, solitude, and a willingness to engage with what has been hidden.

Depth psychotherapy invites the woman not to suppress her symptom but to ask what it expresses and what it accomplishes. Yes, it has negative consequences, but it also relieves her of anxiety and gives her a sense of control and peace, if only for a short time.  Bingeing may have once been her body’s protest or solace during emotional starvation. Restriction may have been an act of control when life felt formless or unsafe. These gestures carry meaning; they are not merely mistakes or behavioral malfunctions.

The Protective Genius of the Disorder

When we label bulimia or anorexia purely as pathology, we miss the intelligence that created them. The disorder is often a psychic compromise—a survival adaptation to trauma, neglect, or unbearable longing. In neurological terms, the brain attempts to regulate overwhelming emotion through ritualized behavior. In psychological terms, it is the ego’s defense against the terror of annihilation.

But when the symptom is stripped away without addressing the terror it concealed, the woman may feel more fragile than before. The behaviors vanish, yet the raw pain beneath remains unintegrated. She may relapse or transfer the compulsion to another domain: perfectionism, work, relationships, or even spiritual striving. She may isolate herself and exercise extreme control over who can enter her life. She may act out her feelings sexually, by becoming sexually anorexic or sexually bulimic, i.e., having no sex or excessive sex or alternating between bingeing on sex and then restricting her sexual activities.

The deeper task, addressed by depth oriented recovery work,  is not simply to stop the behavior but to meet the self that the behavior defended. The goal is to find, develop, and strengthen the self’s ability to care for itself sturdily and healthily.

The Slow Return to Inner Authority

Depth oriented psychotherapy asks something radical of both therapist and patient: patience. In the beginning, nothing changes. But beneath the surface, a new internal relationship begins to form—between the frightened parts of the self and the witnessing consciousness that can hold them.

Gradually, the woman learns to inhabit her own interior space without dissociating or numbing. She relies on the presence and sensed experience of her therapist to risk knowing more about her own inner life. She begins to sense the origins of her hunger—not just for food, but for safety, recognition, and truth. What once seemed dangerous to feel becomes tolerable. Over time, this reclaims what neuroscience calls neural integration—and what the psyche calls wholeness.

Recovery then becomes more than the absence of symptoms. It becomes the presence of self.

The Cultural Displacement of Depth

Why has depth recovery work fallen so far from favor? Because it cannot be mass-produced. It requires devotion, mystery, and language that resists quantification. It values metaphor over metric. It asks questions that disrupt the very systems eager to declare a cure.

Insurance plans will not reimburse a conversation about a dream of a locked door, nor will a randomized controlled trial easily capture the slow emergence of courage in a woman who finally speaks what was once unspeakable. Yet this is where transformation lives—in what cannot be counted.

The modern world prefers measurable wellness to soulful integration. But the women who come to therapy after exhausting all other routes already know: symptom management does not touch the deepest wound.

The Return of Meaning

What does it mean to heal from an eating disorder at depth? It means that hunger becomes human again. Food loses its moral charge. The woman no longer measures her worth in control or purity. She begins to feel curiosity toward her inner life, her body, and her relationships. She develops a tolerance for uncertainty, and with it, the freedom to live authentically.

In this sense, recovery is not an end state but a return to participation with life. It is not compliance with a program but reconciliation with one’s own being.

A Therapist’s Weariness, and Hope

After decades of writing and speaking about eating disorders, I, too, have felt weary of repeating what feels self-evident, of witnessing new generations suffer the same distortions in a culture that glorifies control.  I become disheartened when a woman has spent years bingeing and purging or compulsively overeating and still thinks her problem is with food. She may call because she is terrified that her life is in danger.  She’s had stents implanted and knees replaced, yet she still talks about diets, exercise, and failures at following behavioral protocols. 

Yet my weariness and heartache, when I examine myself and my work, are also a call. It reminds me that the conversation must move deeper still, to the level of meaning and psyche.

The next step in our understanding of recovery must not be faster cognitive restructuring or new medications. It must be the restoration of the human spirit to the center of treatment.

Toward the Unfinished Work

In the companion essay to this essay, The Unfinished Work Beneath Symptom Relief, I’ll explore what happens when depth healing begins—the encounter with trauma memory, the symbolic language of the body, and the slow, courageous reconstruction of self-trust. For now, it is enough to remember that eating disorders are not solved through willpower or techniques. They are invitations to know the self that has lived unseen.

FAQ

Q: What’s the difference between modern evidence-based treatment and depth psychotherapy?

A: Evidence-based treatments target behaviors and thoughts, while depth psychotherapy addresses the unconscious meanings, trauma patterns, and relational wounds beneath those symptoms.

Q: Are CBT and medication wrong for treating eating disorders?

A: Not at all. They can stabilize acute distress. But without addressing the underlying psychic injuries, recovery often remains incomplete or fragile.

Q: Why do some women relapse even after years of apparent recovery?

A: When the inner causes of the disorder—shame, deprivation, fear of visibility—remain unintegrated, the psyche seeks other ways to express them. Deep work brings those causes into consciousness.

Resources

• Keaton, D. Then Again. Random House, 2011.
• Poppink, J. Healing Your Hungry Heart: Recovering from Your Eating Disorder. Conari Press, 2011.
• Woodman, M. The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation. Inner City Books, 1985.
• Kalsched, D. The Inner World of Trauma. Routledge, 1996.
• van der Kolk, B. The Body Keeps the Score. Viking, 2014.
• Diane Keaton Suffered From Bulimia

Signature

Joanna Poppink, MFT, is a depth-oriented psychotherapist specializing in midlife women’s development through life transitions,  trauma integration, and deep eating disorder recovery. She offers virtual psychotherapy in California, Arizona, Florida, and Oregon.

For a free 20 minute consultation, e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Strength and rooted confidence despite workplace betrayal.

Summary

Talented women are often targeted at work by jealous executives and insecure colleagues. This article, Workplace Sabotage: Why and How Talented Women Are Undermined, explores why and how workplace sabotage occurs, the psychology of envy in leadership, the toll this takes women, and how depth psychotherapy facilitates the transformation of betrayal into independence and strength.

A Case Story: When Excellence Threatens Mediocrity

A professional woman in a large, respected organization had built her reputation through years of high-quality work. She consistently met challenges, was given increasing responsibility, and became a trusted leader in her field.

 From womb to midlife: You are learning through experience in your earliest moments of life

Introduction: Why Gestational and Birth Imprints Matter at Midlife

by Joanna Poppink, MFT

Summary: Healing Your Earliest Imprints at Midlife

Your beginnings matter. Whether you were a twin, premature, born through violence, or carried the weight of your mother’s fear, those early experiences live on in body and psyche. They shape anxiety, relationships, and identity — but they also hold resilience, creativity, and depth.

At midlife, you have the strength to revisit these earliest imprints, not to retraumatize, but to integrate. Through psychotherapy, symbolic work, and body-based practices, your earliest beginnings can become a source of wholeness and renewal.

Introduction: Why Gestational and Birth Imprints Matter at Midlife

At midlife, many women begin to feel currents beneath the surface of their lives. On the outside, they may appear resilient, accomplished, and steady. Inside, though, they carry an undertow of anxiety, fragility, or exhaustion that doesn’t match the surface. Often, these feelings seem to come from nowhere. In truth, they are echoes of beginnings that have lived quietly in the body since gestation and birth.

These earliest imprints do not fade simply because we cannot consciously remember them. They shape our nervous systems, our attachment patterns, and our unconscious expectations of the world. For some women, these imprints carry wounds of loss, rejection, or struggle. Others have gifts of resilience, endurance, or deep connection. Most of us carry both.

Depth psychotherapy for women offers a safe and steady approach to bringing these unconscious stories into awareness. At midlife, you have the strength, wisdom, and perspective to revisit your earliest beginnings — not to retraumatize yourself, but to discover new meaning and strength in what you have carried all along. This is the heart of midlife women's psychotherapy.

Why Earliest Imprints Matter

Gestation and birth are not blank slates. The fetus is not passive. Even before birth, the developing child is sensing, registering, and responding. Maternal stress, nourishment, illness, or joy become part of the womb environment. The fetus responds to sound, rhythm, touch, and hormonal states.

This is the basis of gestational psychology. Our first experiences of safety, danger, nourishment, or deprivation are encoded into our systems long before we develop memory. These imprints shape the developing nervous system, our capacity to regulate stress, and our unconscious sense of whether the world can be trusted.

Later in life, these early experiences resurface in ways that feel confusing: sudden anxiety without cause, difficulty trusting intimacy, or a restless sense of being different. In therapy, we come to see that these are not random flaws but traces of our first environment.

The Range of Beginnings

No two gestations or births are alike. Among the women I work with, I have seen themes such as:

• Twins and Multiples: The gift of connection from the very beginning, but also the sorrow of lost siblings or the struggle to claim individuality.

• Prematurity: The will to survive against the odds, alongside a lifelong sense of fragility or rushing to catch up.

• Failed Abortion Survivors: The imprint of rejection and existential insecurity, but also the extraordinary resilience of clinging to life.

• Maternal Trauma: Growing in the womb of a mother facing violence, war, famine, or profound stress; inheriting her cortisol and adrenaline, but also her survival strength.

• Ordinary Complications: Breech births, cesareans, or difficult deliveries that leave subtle yet lasting effects on body memory and attachment.

Some women discover these stories through family history. Others feel them emerging symbolically in dreams or through body symptoms. However they surface, they are part of the living fabric of the psyche.

How Early Experiences Resurface at Midlife

Midlife is a threshold. It brings questions of identity, mortality, relationships, and purpose. Transitions such as menopause, caregiving, or loss can stir long-buried patterns.

This is often when early imprints return — not as memories, but as dreams, bodily symptoms, or recurring relational struggles. These womb experiences in midlife often feel like fresh pain, but they are echoes of beginnings.

Common signs include:

• Dreams of drowning, clinging, being trapped, or struggling to emerge (symbolic healing through dreams).

• Body memories: shallow breathing, chest tightness, and unexplained restlessness.

• Repeating patterns of fear of abandonment, survivor guilt, or difficulty trusting love.

These signs do not mean something is wrong with you. They are invitations from the unconscious to revisit beginnings and bring them into conscious life.

Three Ways of Processing Early Imprints

1. Literal Retelling

When a woman first learns her story — that she was premature, a twin, or a failed abortion survivor — it can be both clarifying and destabilizing. Literal retelling can validate feelings long carried in silence, but it also risks retraumatization if not handled with care. In therapy, retelling is used sparingly: enough to give shape, but not so much that the old wound is reopened raw.

2. Symbolic Work

The psyche often presents birth experiences symbolically: in dreams, guided imagery, or spontaneous metaphors. A woman might dream of drowning, clinging to a rock, or being pushed through a narrow passage.

The power of symbolic work lies in its ability to hold trauma at a distance, allowing us to approach and transform it through images. Staying with the symbol — the barnacle, the rock, the waves — allows the story to be lived, felt, and reframed without collapsing back into the unbearable. This is a key pathway for healing birth imprints.

3. Somatic and Aesthetic Practices

Because many early imprints are preverbal, they live most strongly in the body. Shallow breathing, restless sleep, unexplained tension — these can all be echoes of beginnings.

Somatic practices for early trauma (grounding, mindful movement, breathwork) and creative expression (art, ritual, music) let the body speak and release. Rituals can be especially healing: lighting a candle for a lost twin, planting a tree to honor survival, or creating art that externalizes what was once hidden.

Together, these three approaches form a safe, layered way of working:

• Retelling provides context.

• Symbolic work offers meaning.

• Somatic/aesthetic practices bring integration.

• Six Steps Toward Healing and Integration

Step 1 – Opening the Story Field
Healing begins with curiosity. You gently gather what you know — stories told, medical records, or the simple intuition that something happened. What matters is not accuracy, but resonance.

Step 2 – Listening to Symbols and Dreams
Dreams and images carry truths the body can bear. These symbols create distance and containment, allowing you to face the unbearable in a tolerable form.

Step 3 – Noticing the Body’s Memory
Your body remembers. Breath, posture, muscle tone — all carry traces of early life. Learning to listen with compassion transforms the body from an enemy into an ally.

Step 4 – Expressing Through Art and Ritual
Drawing, painting, writing, or ritual externalizes what is inside. Expression gives dignity to what was hidden.

Step 5 – Reframing the Story
The central task: transforming the story of the wound into a story of meaning. From “I almost didn’t make it” to “I carry a fierce will to live.” From “I was unwanted” to “I am uniquely here, with purpose.”

Step 6 – Living with Integration
Integration is ongoing. As you weave symbols, body awareness, and new meaning into your daily life, you begin to live with deeper trust, strength, and a sense of belonging. This builds lasting resilience in midlife women.

Depth Psychotherapy in Midlife

Depth psychotherapy is uniquely suited to this work. A midlife woman does not need quick symptom relief. She needs to understand her life at a deeper level — to reclaim what was hidden, to integrate what was split, and to discover new pathways forward.

In therapy, you are not alone. Your therapist holds the map while you bring honesty and willingness. The unconscious does not overwhelm you with more than you can bear. It reveals pieces of the story at the right time, in the form best for you to accept and process. Together, you honor the pain, discover the gifts, and move toward freedom. This is the promise of healing early life imprints through depth psychotherapy.

Frequently Asked Questions about Healing Your Earliest Imprints

Q1: I don’t remember my birth. How can it affect me now?
You don’t need conscious memory for early imprints to shape your life. Gestational and birth experiences remain in the body and psyche as patterns of emotion, anxiety, and relational dynamics.

Q2: Will exploring this retraumatize me?
No. Depth psychotherapy approaches these early imprints symbolically and gradually. The psyche presents what you are ready to face, and the therapeutic process provides safety, pacing, and containment.

Q3: What if my birth story includes something positive, like being a twin?
Your work then includes honoring the gifts alongside the wounds. Being a twin, for example, may mean you carry both deep early connection and the grief of separation. Integration allows you to hold both truths.

Q4: How long does it take to move through these steps?
There is no fixed timeline. Some women spend weeks on one stage; others return to the same theme over years. Healing is not linear—stages may overlap or recur.

Q5: Why is midlife the right time for this work?
By midlife, many women have the strength, perspective, and motivation to face what was once too overwhelming. This is often a season of reevaluation — of identity, relationships, and purpose.

Q6: How does depth psychotherapy differ from other therapies?
Depth psychotherapy does not only manage symptoms. It goes beneath them, exploring unconscious imprints, symbols, and relational patterns. It honors both the wound and the gift, supporting long-term transformation rather than short-term coping.

Resources for Further Exploration

Books

• Marion Woodman – Addiction to Perfection; The Pregnant Virgin

• Thomas Verny – The Secret Life of the Unborn Child

• Otto Rank – The Trauma of Birth

• Stanislav Grof – Beyond the Brain; The Human Encounter with Death

• Gabor Maté – In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Organizations & Websites

• Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH): birthpsychology.com

• The Marian Woodman Foundation

• Somatic Experiencing International

Resources on this site

• Midlife Women: When Rage Becomes a Healing Force
• Midlife Women Worksheet: Power After Narcissistic Manipulation
• Women and the Stages of a Midlife Breakthrough
• Midlife Women as Consciousness Pioneers: Claiming Your Unlived Life
• "Women's Compliance and Triumph: The Cost of Both in Midlife"
• Worksheet: Midlife Women's Compliance, Reflections on Cost and Current Choices.

If you sense that your earliest beginnings still echo in your life, know that you are not alone. Depth-oriented psychotherapy provides a safe and steady space to explore these imprints and transform them into meaning and strength.

About Joanna Poppink, MFT
Joanna Poppink, MFT, is a depth oriented psychotherapist specializing in psychotherapy for midlife women, eating disorder recovery, and recovery from the impacts of narcissistic abuse. She is licensed in California, Arizona, Florida, and Oregon, and offers secure virtual sessions. If you sense your deeper self pressing upward and are ready to explore this work, please reach out. For a free telephone consultation, write This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net.

 

 

Depth below the surface

Depth-Oriented Psychotherapy for Midlife Women: How It Works and Why It Matters

By Joanna Poppink, MFT

Summary:  When frustration, self-doubt, and inability to move forward on positive change are usual to you, depth psychotherapy can be your path to freedom. Depth psychotherapy explores the hidden inner–outer conflicts that many midlife and professional women experience. Outwardly, they may appear competent, successful, and admired. Inwardly, they may feel fragile, undeserving, or fearful of claiming their true worth. Through the therapeutic relationship, women can uncover unconscious patterns that drive anxiety, perfectionism, loneliness, and self-sabotage. By examining how every action evokes reaction and change, depth psychotherapy transforms pain into meaning. Midlife then becomes not a crisis, but a profound opportunity for growth, courage, and freedom.

 

Glowing Fruit in the Sun: Recognition for Midlife Professional Women

Summary: 
Professional women in midlife may appear to be free from traditional domestic roles. Yet, many remain trapped in hidden patterns of compliance at work—caring for superiors, deferring to authority, and undervaluing their contributions without recognition. Depth psychotherapy—drawing on Freudian, Jungian, Pacifica, CBT, trauma studies, and women’s developmental psychology—helps uncover these unconscious contracts, integrate hidden aspects of the self, and develop practical skills for establishing boundaries and self-awareness. Joanna Poppink, MFT, brings decades of integrative training to guide women toward respect, reciprocity, and freedom in midlife. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 Midlife Professional Women: Breaking Hidden Patterns of Compliance

From the outside, professional midlife women often appear to have escaped the traditional roles that still confine so many of their peers. They never married, or they avoided the suffocating demands of domestic caretaking. They built careers, achieved recognition, and demonstrated their competence in fields that men had long dominated.

And yet, beneath the professional polish, many find themselves haunted by a familiar discontent. They are exhausted by overwork, depleted by endless caretaking of colleagues, and resentful that men in positions of power still take credit for their labor. They are slow to get their projects funded, receive job advancements, and salary increases compared to their younger coworkers and, particularly, men. For instance, a midlife woman might find herself consistently passed over for promotions in favor of younger, less experienced colleagues, despite her years of dedication and hard work.

But also, she may pass over herself by trying to please her employees, cater to their personal needs, become more involved in their personal lives than is professionally wise. She may tolerate subtle or even blatant exploitation of her generous nature because she fears to establish her authority.

The midlife professional women may may take pride in how much their sacrifices advance the careers of their fellow workers, trainees, and superiors. At first, this self-sacrifice seemed like a sign of strength. Many women took pride in making the company, the project, or the boss look good. But over the decades, this pattern becomes a prison. Fellow workers and colleagues grow to expect generosity without giving recognition or only token recognition. Reciprocity never arrives. What emerges is the same grief that housebound women feel—the grief of having given away one’s energy, one’s time, one’s life while putting her barely articulated goals and desires on hold until it may be too late.

The professional woman’s suffering is less visible, because she looks free. But she, too, has been exploited.

How Depth Psychotherapy Helps: learning to recognize how and why she is in this painful and soul eroding position.

 

Making the Unconscious Conscious (Freudian Perspective)

Many of these patterns stem from unconscious contracts established in the past. In simpler terms, in childhood, approval may have depended on obedience, helpfulness, or invisibility. At work, the same contracts reappear: women defer to authority, prop up male colleagues, and internalize pride in being indispensable—but not in being recognized. Psychoanalytic work exposes these hidden loyalties, allowing women to ask: What do I owe myself now?

• For more, see American Psychological Association: Recognition of psychotherapy effectiveness.

Individuation and Archetypes (Jungian Perspective)

Carl Jung called midlife the threshold of individuation: a time when we are pressed to integrate the parts of ourselves that were buried for survival. Professional women may discover they are still living out archetypes—the Dutiful Daughter, the Caretaker, the Shadow Wife—despite having sidestepped traditional marriage. Jungian work uses dreams, symbols, and shadow exploration to uncover these unconscious patterns, releasing women into a fuller, more authentic self.

• Evidence review: Roesler, C. (2013). Evidence for the effectiveness of Jungian psychotherapy.

Beneath the Persona (Pacifica’s Depth Perspective)

Pacifica Graduate Institute describes depth psychology as the exploration of what lies beneath appearances. For the professional woman, the persona of competence and authority often hides a submerged self longing for recognition, reciprocity, and freedom. Therapy provides a sacred container to listen to slips of the tongue, resentments, exhaustion, and dreams—clues from the unconscious about what has been deferred. These signals are not symptoms to be silenced but invitations to transformation.

• Pacifica overview: What Is Depth Psychology? | Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Insight Plus Tools (Eclectic Depth Perspective)

Some women need both the excavation of unconscious motives and practical tools to change entrenched patterns. An eclectic depth approach combines dream and shadow work with skill-building, including boundary setting, reframing perfectionism, learning to tolerate the anxiety of saying “no,” and practicing negotiation. This blend of insight and action not only helps women understand why they defer but also provides a path to stop doing it, offering a sense of relief and hope.

• On eclectic depth approaches: ChoosingTherapy.com: Eclectic Therapy—How It Works, Types, & What to Expect.

The Turning Point of Midlife

The professional midlife woman may not receive the recognition she has earned from her workplace. But in therapy, she begins to recognize herself. This act of self-recognition becomes the first step toward courage—toward reclaiming resources that have been endlessly given away and redirecting them toward her own vision. This process validates her experiences and feelings.

Depth psychotherapy does not offer quick fixes. It provides a guided journey into the unconscious patterns that have shaped life, and a way through to transformation. For professional women, this means moving from silent sacrifice to conscious authorship of their future—claiming respect, freedom, and meaning.

About Joanna Poppink, MFT

My approach is grounded in decades of study and practice across multiple traditions of psychotherapy. I began with extensive training in Freudian psychoanalysis, developing a deep respect for the power of uncovering unconscious patterns. Over the years, I turned to Jungian psychology, studying archetypes, dreams, and individuation both independently and through work at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

In addition, I have dedicated concentrated time to studying cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and trauma research, integrating their practical tools into depth-oriented work. My ongoing focus has been on the psychological development of women across all stages of life—from early adulthood through midlife and into later years. This integration of traditions allows me to meet professional women at the crossroads of their struggles: uncovering hidden loyalties, reclaiming inner authority, and equipping them with practical skills to live authentically.

Joanna Poppink, MFT

Depth-Oriented Psychotherapy for Midlife Women

Licensed in CA, OR, FL, and AZ

Virtual appointments available. For a free telephone consultation, write This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

  

 🔹 FAQ 

 

FAQ: Depth Psychotherapy for Midlife Professional Women

1. Why do professional midlife women struggle with recognition despite their success?

Many midlife professional women unconsciously repeat early patterns of obedience and helpfulness in the workplace. This often shows up as hidden workplace compliance patterns—overworking, supporting authority figures, and allowing others to take credit. Depth psychotherapy helps make these unconscious contracts visible so women can reclaim self-worth and recognition.

2. How does depth psychotherapy help with burnout and resentment at work?

Depth therapy for burnout and resentment goes beyond symptom management. Through Jungian, Freudian, and trauma-informed approaches, women uncover the unconscious drivers of over-giving. This process restores energy, strengthens boundaries, and fosters empowerment for women who feel invisible at work.

3. What makes Joanna Poppink’s approach unique for midlife women?

Joanna integrates Jungian psychotherapy, CBT, and trauma studies with decades of experience in women’s development. This blend of methods provides both deep exploration and practical tools. Women gain insight into unconscious roles like the Dutiful Daughter or Caretaker, while learning concrete skills for saying no and redirecting energy into their own lives.

4. Can psychotherapy help if I don’t meet criteria for a diagnosis?

Yes. Many professional women in midlife do not identify as “sick” but still feel exhausted, undervalued, or unseen. Depth psychotherapy for women seeking freedom addresses the root causes—unconscious conflicts, unbalanced roles, hidden resentments—leading to lasting change rather than temporary fixes.

5. Is depth-oriented psychotherapy only for women in traditional roles?

No. Even women who never married or avoided domestic caretaking can feel trapped by invisible workplace labor and compliance in professional settings. Therapy offers a safe, guided space to examine these dynamics, build new boundaries, and live authentically.

6. Where do you offer services?

Joanna Poppink, MFT, provides online psychotherapy for women in California, Arizona, Florida, and Oregon. Virtual appointments allow professional women to access depth-oriented psychotherapy in midlife from the privacy of their own homes or offices. For a free telephone consultation e-mail Joanna at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 Resources:

 

• Midlife Women: When Rage Becomes a Healing Force
• Midlife Women Worksheet: Power After Narcissistic Manipulation
• Women and the Stages of a Midlife Breakthrough
• Midlife Women as Consciousness Pioneers: Claiming Your Unlived Life
• "Women's Compliance and Triumph: The Cost of Both in Midlife"
• Worksheet: Midlife Women's Compliance, Reflections on Cost and Current Choices.

Feminist & Depth Psychology

• Karen Horney — Feminine Psychology
• Virginia Woolf — A Room of One’s Own
• George Sand — Memoirs and Letters

 

Worksheet: Breaking Hidden Patterns of Compliance in Midlife Professional Women

Instructions

Set aside 20–30 minutes in a quiet space. Answer honestly and without judgment. These reflections are for you.

Part 1: Recognition of Patterns

1. Workplace Behaviors
Check the ones that apply to you:

• I put others’ needs ahead of my own at work.
• I stay late or take on extra tasks without recognition.
• I tolerate colleagues or supervisors taking credit for my work.
• I avoid setting boundaries because I fear conflict.
• I feel pride in being indispensable, even if it leaves me drained.

2. Reflection Prompt

• Which of these behaviors show up most often in your life?
• How do you feel when you notice them?

Part 2: The Hidden Cost

1. Personal Impact

• In what ways has over-giving or compliance at work affected your health, energy, or personal life?
• What goals or desires have been delayed or set aside?

2. Emotional Signals
Circle the feelings you experience most often:

• Resentment
• Exhaustion
• Grief
• Anxiety
• Pride in sacrifice
• Other: _____________

Part 3: Tracing the Roots

Reflection Questions

• Growing up, what roles earned you approval (e.g., being helpful, obedient, invisible)?
• How might these early contracts still shape your professional life today?
• When have you noticed yourself replaying “The Dutiful Daughter,” “The Caretaker,” or “The Shadow Wife” in your workplace?

Part 4: Imagining Change

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Write down three ways you can begin to recognize and value yourself this week—without waiting for outside approval.

2. Boundaries Practice
Identify one situation where you can practice saying “no” or setting a limit.

• Situation: ____________________________
• Boundary I will try: ____________________
• Possible anxiety I might feel: ____________
• Support I can call on: __________________

Part 5: Moving Toward Wholeness

• If you no longer gave away your energy without reciprocity, what would you reclaim for yourself?
• How might your life look different in one year if you shifted from silent sacrifice to conscious authorship of your future?

Closing

This worksheet is a first step. Depth psychotherapy offers a guided path to uncover unconscious contracts, integrate previously hidden aspects of the self, and develop practical skills for establishing boundaries and achieving freedom. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

 

 

 

Decision before take off: your choices

 

Midlife Women's Power and Authority in Life Decisions

Choosing the Right “Inner CEO” in Midlife

By Joanna Poppink, MFT

 

 

Summary: inner CEO framework for midlife women

For a midlife woman, established habits and leadership styles may need to evolve. The metaphor of the Inner Boardroom framework offers a practical approach for assessing the roles, voices, and influences that shape her life decisions.

Each “Inner CEO”—such as the Pleaser, Achiever, Visionary, Rebel, and Self-Nurturer—offers unique strengths and potential drawbacks. External and internal “shareholders,” including family, workplace expectations, cultural norms, and inner psychological drivers, further shape choices.

The framework encourages appointing leadership strategically:

• Transformational CEO → Visionary and Innovator lead during times of major change or reinvention.

• Operational CEO → Achiever and Perfectionist provide structure and stability during periods of consolidation.

• Integrative CEO → Self-Nurturer works with Visionary and Innovator to balance purpose, well-being, and creativity.

Regular “board meetings” support ongoing assessment of priorities, strategies, and desired outcomes. This approach improves clarity, adaptability, and alignment between decisions and long-term goals.

 

Introduction: The Inner Boardroom Within You

At midlife, the strategies that once worked—pleasing, performing, achieving—don’t always carry us forward. Inside, it can feel chaotic, as if there’s a boardroom meeting happening in your heart: competing voices, conflicting priorities, urgent shareholders demanding returns on your time and energy.

I call this the Inner Boardroom—and learning how to navigate it can change everything.

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Part I. Meeting Your Inner Boardroom: midlife women decision-making

You have many “inner CEOs,” each representing qualities you’ve developed over the years: your Pleaser, Achiever, Caretaker, Visionary, Rebel, and more. These leaders have carried you through school, careers, relationships, parenting, and personal challenges.

Some are brilliant in crisis. Some create stability. Others have been waiting quietly, underutilized, for years.

This framework helps you identify who’s at the table, what they offer, and where they might lead you now.

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Part II. Understanding Your Shareholders: balancing competing priorities as a midlife woman

Choosing your “inner CEO” isn’t simple because you’re not making decisions in a vacuum. You have shareholders—the influences, expectations, and voices inside and outside you that “invested” in the life you’ve built.

Some of these shareholders are loving and supportive. Others are demanding and unrelenting. Some you didn’t even know were in the room.

External Shareholders

• Family of Origin → Old roles you learned early: caretaker, peacemaker, achiever.

• Adult Children → Stability and presence.

• Partner or Spouse → Familiarity and predictability.

• Friends & Social Circles → Shared identity and belonging.

• Workplace & Colleagues → Productivity, reliability, reputation.

• Cultural Norms → What’s “appropriate” for women at your age.

Internal Shareholders

• Inner Critic → Wants safety through perfection.

• Inner Child → Wants security and acceptance.

• Visionary Self → Yearns for possibility and creative risk.

• Shadow Self → Holds the parts of you you’ve silenced.

• Inner Healer → Wants integration and wholeness.

Dormant Shareholders

Some “investors” in your life haven’t had much say—yet their influence could change everything:

• Creative Self → Wants expression and play.

• Embodied Self → Wants rest, health, sensual presence.

• Spiritual Self → Wants meaning and connection.

• Boundary-Setter → Wants autonomy and self-respect.

Part III. Choosing a New Inner CEO: inner voices and decision-making

 

Midlife is rarely about one permanent solution. It’s about matching your leadership to the moment.

1. Transformational CEO (For Times of Disruption)

When life demands reinvention, call on your Visionary and Innovator. They’ll see possibilities others miss and give you courage to act.

2. Operational CEO (For Times of Stabilization)

When you need structure after upheaval, bring forward your Achiever and Perfectionist. They’ll create systems and consistency to support your next chapter.

3. Integrative CEO (For Times of Expansion)

When balance matters most, appoint your Self-Nurturer alongside the Visionary and Innovator. Together, they harmonize purpose, health, and creativity.

Part IV. Holding Your Inner Board Meeting: adaptive leadership strategies for midlife women

This is where clarity begins:

1. Name Your Inner CEOs → Who dominates your decisions right now?

2. Listen to Your Shareholders → Whose approval still shapes your choices?

3. Review Track Records → Which strategies worked once but fail now?

4. Match Leadership to the Moment → Which qualities will best serve you today?

5. Appoint Your CEO → Let her lead with focus and intention.

6. Revisit Quarterly → Life evolves; so should your leadership.

Part V. Why This Matters: psychological self-leadership

Harvard Business Review shows that in uncertain times, companies thrive when they appoint leaders who are adaptable, creative, and unafraid to pivot (HBR source).

The same is true in your life. The qualities that brought you here may not carry you forward. Dormant strengths—your creativity, spirituality, and self-compassion—are waiting to take their seat at the table.

Closing Reflection

This work isn’t about firing old CEOs or silencing shareholders. It’s about creating space for the qualities within you that align with who you’re becoming.

You are the Board Chair.
You hold the authority to choose.
You can lead your life with courage, adaptability, and clarity.

Want Support Choosing Your Inner CEO?

Depth psychotherapy can help you:

• Understand your inner shareholders

• Reclaim untapped strengths

• Release outdated leadership strategies

• Appoint the qualities ready to guide your next chapter

FAQ: The Inner Boardroom Framework

Resources

• Book: Healing Your Hungry Heart
  A structured guide to recovery and personal development:
  
  Harvard Business Review: Adaptive Leadership: Choose the right CEO for volatile times
  Research on why flexible, context-specific leadership improves outcomes:
  
  Midlife Women as Consciousness Pioneers: Claiming Your Unlived Life

 Joanna Poppink, MFT
Licensed Psychotherapist — California, Arizona, Florida, Oregon — online private practice for midlife women
Specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery, transitions, eating disorder recovery, and depth psychotherapy for women in midlife and beyond
To request a free telephone consultation, write This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

 

Worksheet: Midlife Women’s Compliance – Reflections on Cost and Current Choices

accompanies "Women's Compliance and Triumph: The Cost of Both in Midlife"

At a Glance

This worksheet helps you explore how compliance may have shaped your life, what it has cost, and the choices available to you now. These prompts are not about right or wrong answers. They are about seeing clearly:

• What you were taught
• How you shaped yourself to be accepted
• What you gave up to maintain belonging
• Where you feel tension between compliance and truth
• How you might begin to live beyond roles handed down to you

Compliance is often invisible until you take a closer look at how it has shaped your choices, relationships, and sense of self. These prompts are designed to help you notice both the cost of compliance and the current choices available to you.

Write slowly. Let yourself pause. Some answers may bring up grief, anger, or longing. You may also notice strength and possibility.                                                                                                  You can still choose your path and direction

Section I: The Cost of Compliance                 

• Going back over the years, including your early years, what did you learn about behaving, speaking, playing, feeling, thinking, and working that was unique for girls and not boys?
• What messages about being “good” did you accept as being a girl rather than a boy?
• What pushback did you receive when you moved into “boy territory”? From whom? How?
• How have you shaped yourself to meet expectations from family, school, religion, or culture?
• What have you denied yourself to maintain approval?
• What symptoms—emotional or physical—do you see now that may be linked to long-term compliance?

Section II: The Voice Inside

• When have you silenced yourself in conversation because you believed deferring was the right thing to do?
• What desires or needs do you still label as “selfish” or “too much”?
• How do you police yourself before others can?
• What do you most long for but rarely admit, even privately?
• Where did you know the answer, see the solution, know a path, but suppressed voicing or had someone prevent you from showing your ability?
• Where did you know the answer, speak it softly and politely, only to have someone else repeat it with force and get credit?

Section III: The Expired Script

• How has aging changed the role you were expected to play?
• When have you felt invisible because you no longer fit the “approved” script?
• What actions or choices do you take to hold onto old approval—appearance, service, silence—even when they no longer fit?

Section IV: Current Choices

• What are you no longer willing to comply with?
• Where in your life do you feel the tension between compliance and what is true and real for you?
• What would it mean to stand in your own authority without waiting for permission?
• What small steps could you take now to live outside the script handed down to you?

Section V: Moving Toward Triumph

• Where have you already acted on your own authority?
• What did it cost, and what did it give you?
• Who do you know—real or literary—who has lived outside compliance and can inspire you?
• How do you want your life to look if you choose yourself over compliance?

Literary Companions for Reflection

These works show examples of the costs of compliance and how women throughout history and literature have responded to it. Reading them isn’t just intellectual—it offers perspective, language, and courage. Literature lets you see your struggles reflected in the lives of others and imagine possibilities you might not have considered.

• Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar – A young woman’s descent under external expectations and her fight for her voice.
• Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House – A woman recognizes her obedience has defined her life and chooses the unknown.
• Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler – A woman trapped by cultural constraints fights destructively against them.
• Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary – A woman’s longing collides with punishment; rebellion without self-knowledge carries its own cost.
• George Sand, Story of My Life – An autobiographical account of living beyond compliance and creating a self-directed life.
• Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own – Argues for women’s independence and space to think, write, and live authentically.

Why These Readings Matter

These books are not just stories from another time. They are maps of how women have lived under the weight of compliance, how some broke away, and how others were destroyed by the pressure. Reading them gives perspective on your own life. You can see that your struggles are not personal flaws but part of a long history of women being trained to conform.

They also help you imagine choices. Literature lets you witness what happens when a woman stays silent, when she resists, or when she builds a new life outside the script. The language of these writers can give shape to what you feel but may not yet know how to say. They remind you that you are not alone, and that the path toward triumph is possible—even when it feels uncertain.

Summary

Compliance shapes how women live, what they expect, and what they allow themselves to want. It can bring a sense of belonging and even joy, but those joys are often time-limited and role-specific. Midlife brings a shift: the roles may expire, but longing continues. You may want more and different—even if you don’t yet know what that is.

This worksheet invites you to examine the cost of compliance, the choices available to you now, and the possibility of building a life beyond the script handed down to you.

FAQ

Q: I had joy in my life. Does that mean compliance wasn’t a problem?

A: Not necessarily. Many women find meaning and happiness within roles. But those joys are often limited by the role itself. Wanting more now is natural—and valid.

Q: What if I don’t know what I want instead?

A: That’s common. Compliance can conceal desire, even from yourself. Awareness comes first. Clarity comes with time, reflection, and support.

Q: Why does midlife bring these questions to the surface?

A: Roles expire, but longing doesn’t. When the cultural script ends, there’s no ready-made replacement. Midlife can become the moment to pause, question, and choose.

Q: How can psychotherapy help?

A: Depth psychotherapy provides space to explore what compliance has cost you, honor the joys that did exist, and uncover what wants to emerge now. Together, we follow dreams, body signals, and inner conflicts to support your next chapter.

A Personal Invitation

These questions may stir memories, longings, or conflicts that feel close to the surface. You may also remember moments of joy within your roles—real joys—but now you want more, and you want different. You may not yet know what that is.

Depth psychotherapy with me offers a space to explore these questions safely and thoroughly. Together, we examine what compliance has cost, what you’ve already built, and what could be opened beyond the script handed down to you. You don’t need to carry this alone.

Joanna Poppink, MFT

Licensed Psychotherapist in California, Arizona, Florida, and Oregon

For a free 20-minute telephone consultation, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Joy in claiming your unlived life --- and living it.

 

 

Claiming Your Unlived Life

By Joanna Poppink, MFT

Depth Psychotherapy for Women in Midlife and Beyond

 

What happens when a woman in midlife begins to explore the life she hasn’t lived?

Perhaps it starts with a strange dream, a sudden fatigue around roles once embraced, or a quiet ache that no longer responds to the usual comforts. Maybe she finds herself drawn to symbols she doesn’t yet understand, or her body begins speaking in new ways—through illness, insomnia, or a burst of creative longing.

It may start with the last straw. The woman cries alone in the bathroom yet again, her pain disregarded, demeaned, or ignored. She is shocked and is forced to silently stand by while her parent or employer makes a financial or social decision that she knows will cause pain, loss, or unnecessary hardship. She may suddenly notice a long, subtle pattern of her being undermined as she struggles to maintain her prescribed role while also reaching out to develop new skills, awareness, or talents.  

This woman is not broken. She is rallying her energy to bring her vision to life. She is pioneering.

The Call of the Unlived Life

Many women arrive at midlife having followed scripts written by others—family, culture, religion, or survival. They may have succeeded by external standards while remaining disconnected from inner truth. The soul, however, is patient. In midlife, it often begins to speak louder.

This is the territory of the unlived life—the dreams deferred, the truths silenced, the gifts buried under duty and conformity.

To turn toward this life is an act of courage. It is the first step on the path of the consciousness pioneer.

Consciousness Pioneers: Women at the Edge of Becoming

Carl Jung described the pioneers of consciousness. He said pioneers of consciousness are people who step beyond cultural and collective norms. They move beyond artificial identities and do their individual and authentic deep inner work. For women, this often means challenging the patterns that have defined “a good woman” for generations: be pleasing, self-sacrificing, silent, small.

The consciousness pioneer within a midlife woman begins to ask different questions:

• What parts of me have I never allowed to live?
• What is this image that recurs in my dreams?
• What wisdom does my body carry, beyond words?
• What happens if I stop performing and start listening?

These questions are not casual curiosities. They are doorways.

Breaking Your Silence, Reclaiming Power

When a woman dares to voice the truth of her inner experience—especially in a world that rewards her for suppressing it—she breaks generational silence.

• She may start saying no where she once said yes.
• She may choose solitude over toxic loyalty.
• She may pursue knowledge, art, or spiritual paths long denied.
• She may grieve what was lost—and still reach for what is yet possible.

This is not rebellion for its own sake. It is self-restoration. And in doing so, she does not just transform herself. She quietly shifts the culture around her. She makes room for other women to do the same.

Body, Dream, and Symbol: Allies in the Journey to Claim Your Unlived Life

Depth psychotherapy invites women to slow down and listen—especially to the parts of themselves they’ve long ignored. Here, the body is not just a vessel but a wise communicator. Dreams are not nonsense but messages from the unconscious. Symbols are not distractions but keys.

Through this work, women discover that they don’t need to be rescued or perfected. They need to be heard, by themselves most of all.

The goal is not to become someone new, but to become who they have always been beneath the roles.

Living Your Unlived Life: A New Model of Strength and Maturity

The consciousness pioneer becomes a new model of feminine strength—not defined by control or compliance, but by awareness, presence, and inner authority.

She may still feel fear. She may grieve time lost. But she now moves with a deeper knowing.

• She is spiritually grounded and psychologically awake.
• She is capable of intimate relationships without self-erasure.
• She is no longer ruled by inherited shame.
• She lives with depth, direction, and dignity.

This is the real work of midlife—not fighting age, but stepping into the power of meaning.

Depth Psychotherapy as Companion on the Path

This journey is not meant to be walked alone. In depth psychotherapy, we create a trustworthy space to explore the unlived life, interpret dreams, decode symptoms, and recover the wisdom buried in early wounds.

Together, we follow the symbols. We honor the losses. We open to the new.

It is not a linear path. But it is an honest one based on the truth of real emerging identity.

Reflection Questions on the Path to Your Unlived Life

If you are entering this territory, take your time. You might begin by asking:

• What have I outgrown, but continue to carry?
• Where do I feel most alive—and most afraid?
• What images, dreams, or sensations keep returning?
• What legacy am I still unconsciously living?
• What would it mean to inhabit my own life truly?
• You Are Not Alone

You are not the only one waking up in this way. Women across the world, in private and quiet ways, are turning inward and discovering that midlife is not the end—it is the turning point.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to reach out. I offer depth psychotherapy for women ready to step into this sacred and life-changing work.

Visit www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net for more articles and information, or email me directly for a consultation. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Summary

Women in midlife who begin exploring their unlived lives—through dreams, symbols, body awareness, and ancestral healing—are not breaking down, but breaking through. They are consciousness pioneers, reclaiming truth, agency, and a new vision of feminine strength. Depth psychotherapy supports this sacred journey of becoming.

 

Suggested Resources

For deeper reflection and continued reading

🔸 Books and Writings

1.         Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

2.         Carl Gustav Jung – The Red Book: Liber Novus

3.         Marion Woodman – Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride

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🔹 Articles on Joanna Poppink's site

(Internal resources to help midlife women explore depth psychotherapy and reclaim their lives)

Midlife Women: When Rage Becomes a Healing Force

Midlife Women: When Disapproval Validates and Approval Undermines

Midlife Women Worksheet: Power After Narcissistic Manipulation

Women and the Stages of a Midlife Breakthrough: one stage at a time

 

Joanna Poppink, MFT
Licensed Psychotherapist — California, Arizona, Florida, Oregon — online private practice for midlife women
Specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery, transitions, eating disorder recovery, and depth psychotherapy for women in midlife and beyond
To request a free telephone consultation, write This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.