The Menopauses™
The psychology of menopause, lived in relationship.
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There is more than one menopause experience.
Menopause is often used as though it names one experience: one transition, one pathway, one set of symptoms, one point in life.Yet it's many transitions, pathways, in a body of living experiences
Natural stages, early, surgical, risk-reducing, treatment-induced and medical menopause, and gender-diverse transitions, are more than one universal menopause experience. And what about the psychological experiences - our bodies, histories, identities, relationships, and social conditions?
Biology is only part of the story. Every menopause is lived within a larger biopsychosocial ecology.
The Menopauses™ explores the psychology of experiencing and living through the menopause transitions—and supports the development of menopause-informed psychotherapy.
Created by Julie Cardoza, LMFT — psychotherapist, clinical educator, and EMDRIA Approved Consultant™.
Language is Context.
And it's more than another conversation about reproductive aging.
It's about the person at the center of the story.
About lived and living experiences
And being able to relate to ourselves, and each other.
There is more than one menopause experience.
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Natural Menopauses
Premenopause → Perimenopause →
Menopause →
Early Postmenopause →
Late Postmenopause
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Other Menopauses
Early
Surgical
Risk-Reducing / Prophylactic
Treatment-Induced
Medical
Gender-Diverse
A Human Lifespan, Not a Single Moment
The nervous system does not arrive at menopause without a history.
Early adversity, sources of protection, relationships, trauma, culture, health, medical experiences, chronic stress, neurodivergence, caregiving, work, and social conditions may all be part of the life that arrives at the menopause transition.
When menopause is reduced to a reproductive endpoint, we risk losing the lifespan that arrived there.
There Is More Than One Menopause
There are stages of reproductive aging, different pathways into menopause, and many years of life beyond the final menstrual period. Natural, early, surgical, risk-reducing, treatment-induced, medical, and gender-diverse transitions do not create one universal psychological experience.
A Critical Gap
- Informed Care
People experiencing psychological distress during the menopause transition are often referred to therapy. But therapists are not routinely trained to recognize menopause as part of the clinical context, and the biological transition can disappear once care moves into the therapy room.
The person is left between two systems: medical care may identify the need for psychological support, while mental-health care may receive the person without the reproductive-lifespan knowledge needed to understand what they are living through.
Menopause-Informed Psychotherapy is an answer to this gap. It recognizes the healing potential of relationship during a transition that often coincides with other forms of support becoming thinner or falling away. It asks therapists to understand the menopause continuum, recognize the different pathways through it, ask better questions, collaborate with medical care when needed, and bring that knowledge into the therapeutic relationship.
The Menopauses™ examines that critical care gap.
