October & November Lunch & Learn

Service Description

Matrescence is often framed as joyful, but for many it's disorienting and destabilizing. The first session names what so often goes unspoken: regret, ambivalence, resentment, not enjoying feeding, not enjoying the daily work of parenting, and not feeling bonded. Rather than pathologizing these experiences, we'll explore how IFS helps clinicians understand them as protective parts responding to an enormous identity shift. We'll discuss the protective logic behind ambivalence and resentment, how firefighter parts show up as disconnection or irritability, and how to help clients build enough internal safety to explore these parts with more compassion and less shame. Building on Part 1, this session turns from the identity rupture toward the ongoing process of integration. Matrescence isn't a single event that resolves — it continues unfolding for months or years, and parts that once felt shattered need ongoing relationship as a client's life keeps changing. We'll explore how polarizations soften over time, how clinicians can track this evolving internal landscape with clients, and how to support those who feel pressure to have "arrived." This session helps clinicians hold matrescence not as a problem to solve, but as an ongoing relationship between old and emerging parts of self.