Join us in-room on 1st November for a practical, in-depth workshop, led by the highly experienced and insightful Sarah Demaree.
What many of our clients experience every month is not ‘normal’ – it’s often absolute hell.
Unbearable pain. Life-limiting symptoms. Serious physical, emotional, and psychological distress.
And yet so often, these symptoms remain undiagnosed, untreated, or outright dismissed. We are talking about conditions like endometriosis, adenomyosis, premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) and postnatal depression (PND) — all of which can be devastating and deeply misunderstood.
The facts:
- Current diagnosis times for endometriosis in England and Scotland have risen to 8 years and 10 months.
- Women with PMDD waited an average of 12 years and saw six medical providers before receiving an accurate diagnosis.
- One study found that among female suicide attempters, the prevalence of PMDD was 23% (Ducasse et al., 2016).
- 21% of autistic women (compared to 3% of non-autistic women) have PMDD (Lever & Gertz, 2016).
- 57.6% of ADHD women in one study were diagnosed with PND — far higher than the prevalence in non-ADHD women (Dorani et al., 2021).
So what does this mean for us as therapists?
Many of our clients arrive with depression, anxiety, hopelessness, rage, and lowself-worth — and may not even mention what they’ve been led to believe are“just women’s problems.” They’ve been gaslit, misdiagnosed, and left alone tomake sense of the psychological and emotional fallout of complex, misunderstoodconditions.
The seminar opened the door to these realities.
The workshop takes us deeper.
In the upcoming workshop, we’ll explore how to work therapeutically with clients living with these conditions:
- how to recognise the signs and unmet needs,
- how to heal the impact of systemic discounting,
- and how to support clients in reclaiming their emotional experience, their voice, and their sense of agency
This is not about diagnosing — it's about attuning to the unspoken grief, the trauma of being silenced, and the mental health impact of being continually dismissed by those they turned to for help.
Sarah is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist, supervisor, and trainer based in Central London. Her recent teaching explores the intersection of neuroscience, neurodivergence, and relationships. She also has specialist training in working with eating disorders and is passionate about illuminating the complex interactions between hormones, inflammation, neurodivergence, and their impact on women’s mental health.
