Supportive Mother Wound Therapy for Adult Daughters

What if the way you love, worry, and doubt yourself started long before your current relationships?

Virtual counseling for women across Washington State.

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You can be capable, successful, & still carry this.

Mother wound therapy is for adult women who grew up with a mother who was emotionally distant, critical, unpredictable, or abusive. Maybe you've spent years trying to earn a closeness that never quite arrived. Maybe you stopped trying and feel guilty about that, too.

Most of the women I work with are high-functioning. They handle demanding jobs and take care of everyone around them. And they also ruminate after conversations, question whether they're loved when someone pulls back, and feel like they're either "too much" or "not enough" (sometimes both in the same day).

This work is not mother-daughter therapy. Your mother does not need to participate, agree, or even know. This is about YOU, and what those early years built into your nervous system.

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Why adult daughters work with me

I'm Sara Bickerstaff, LMHC. I've been a mental health counselor for 16+ years, and I have my own complicated relationship with my mother.

LIVED EXPERIENCE- I didn't understand my own mother wound until my 30s, in a therapist's office. I know what it's like to grieve a relationship that will never be what you needed, while still loving the person.

A PROFESSIONAL SPECIALTY - After 16+ years in practice, I noticed how many of my clients shared this one thing. It's now the center of my work.

FULLY VIRTUAL, STATEWIDE - Every session is online. If you're anywhere in Washington State, from Seattle to Spokane to Vancouver, you can work with me from wherever you feel safest.

Learn more about me

How we’ll work together

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Reach out

Fill out the contact form and tell me a little about what you'd like to work on. I'll get back to you to talk through whether we're a good fit.

Understand the pattern

We look at how early dynamics with your mother shaped your nervous system and the way you show up in close relationships now.

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Feel more grounded

Untangle the shame. Set boundaries without guilt. Develop a sense of your own worth that doesn't depend on someone else's reassurance.

What We Work On

SOME OF WHAT COMES UP IN THERAPY FOR MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS

Anxious attachment

The rumination after a conversation. The spiral when someone pulls back. Learning to stop scanning for reassurance.

Boundaries without guilt

Deciding what you'll give and what you won't, in a toxic mother-daughter relationship or one that's simply distant.

Parenting your own daughter

It's hard to build something you've never seen. We work on what a healthy mother-daughter relationship can look like.

Shame + self-worth

The feeling of being "too much" or "not enough." The shame of not having a close relationship with your mother.

Grief + anger together

Loyalty and resentment. Love and disappointment. All of it can be true at once, and we make room for that.

Relational trauma + EMDR

When early memories still carry a charge, EMDR can help process them so they lose their grip on the present.

Questions you might have

  • No. This is individual therapy for you. It is not mother-daughter counseling where you both attend. Your mother doesn't need to participate, agree with your decision, or know you're in therapy at all.

  • Emotional distance, criticism, and unpredictability shape a child just as surely as anything more obvious. Many women I work with hesitate to name their experience because it wasn't dramatic enough. You don't have to justify being here.

  • No. That's your call, not mine, and most women don't. The goal is to help you decide what kind of relationship you want and can sustain, then feel steady in that choice instead of second-guessing it constantly.

  • All sessions are virtual including EMDR sessions. I'm licensed in Washington State, so I can see clients anywhere in Washington.

  • EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It's a structured approach for processing memories that still feel activating years later. I'm trained in it and use it when it fits what you're working on. It's not required.

  • Please use the contact form on this site. It gives me the information I need (including what you'd like to work on) so our first conversation can be productive.

Feel grounded in your relationships instead of bracing for them.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS ALONE.

Get started with virtual mother wound therapy for women anywhere in Washington State.

Start with the Contact Form