Under-mothered
You lead at work, hold everyone up at home, and run on empty.
Therapy for women leaders and founders untangling
people pleasing, burnout, and the grief of being under-mothered.
courageously learn how to find peace within yourself
Emily Bitner, M.S., LCPC
Specialized in
Complicated Mother-Daughter Relationships,
Overcoming People-Pleasing in Leadership/Relationships
In person in Baltimore & virtual throughout state of Maryland
You are beyond capable, caring, and responsible, and Feel like a riverbed slowly drying up, with no inlet to replenish you.
Adult daughters are my specialty, I am one, we all are. It’s easy to be in the world and know your roles: responsible, leader, partner, friend, mother. The deeper challenge is the often unspoken inner yearning for nurturance, a feeling of emptiness and longing for something more from others, from your own mom, from yourself.
Women I work with carry pain from not feeling connected to their own mothers. This could be something experienced through a life-time or more recent event.
You are not alone and may experience any of the following…
You haven’t talked to your mom in a long time and that reduces your anxiety but you aren’t at peace about not being in relationship and have no idea how to have her in your life without feeling bad
Your mom won’t communicate with you. You wonder, does she care about me, love me? When will this end? You replay conversations all of the time. Guilt, grief, and resentment live side by side for you.
You are accomplished, intelligent, capable and still feel you are driven by getting your mother’s approval, you feel like you’re a teenager around her and feel worried that if you assert yourself, she will stop showing up.
The ways you cope…
When we live with a loss of a steady maternal nurturance we find all kinds of ways to cope and adapt. But now, you are in charge of so much that those old ways of managing the loss are the very things leaving you depleted, at loss for ease, feeling uncared for and like your invisible unless you’re performing or doing. The adult daughters I work with are enormously accomplished, intelligent, capable and yet they experience several of the following:
People pleasing
Being ultra independent and capable
Becoming the one everyone leans on at work
Not having needs
Never being a burden
Finding your worth only in your professional life or through giving.
What if there was more to life than proving you are worthy, good, and lovable?
When you have been praised for over-functioning, out-performing, being available at the drop of hat, and managing everything and everyone other than you, it can feel foreign to slow down and receive nurturing.
I help women explore how to feel maternal nurturance in their life even if they are under-mothered. It’s possible to feel connected to something caring, unconditional, supportive, gentle, wise and rooted.
Together, we discover all of the ways it’s possible to RECEIVE maternal nurturance even when they can’t receive it with their own mothers.
this is my wheelhouse
Hi, I’m Emily.
I work with competent and ambitious adult daughters who are CEOs, founders, professional leaders, and often mothers themselves who have estranged or highly complicated relationships with their moms. Women who do it all on the outside and have reached a point where all they know is they want support, want to stop the rumination of constantly trying to strategize how to fix the relationship with their mom, stop feeling guilty and responsible, and finally embrace they might actually be good — somehow, someway.
Using Relational EMDR, IFS (parts work), psychodynamic therapy, and attachment-based work, we do deep work, where the real answers live. This work is not only psychological, it is somatic, spiritual at times, and relational, honoring the whole of who you are.
I work best with clients who are ready enough to take the time for themselves, commit to weekly sessions, and view this as a way to do rooted healing work. The work we do is deep, tender and empowering. I’m interested in supporting you in experiencing real change, in how you relate to yourself and feel supported in the world.