Therapy for Life Transitions: Navigate Change with Confidence in Roseville, CA

Life transitions can feel overwhelming, especially when you're someone who thrives on control and predictability. If you're an anxious overachiever or people-pleaser, you might find yourself lying awake at 3 AM, your mind racing with uncertainty about the future. Perhaps you've tried self-help books or even previous therapy, but you're still struggling with the internal chaos that major life transitions bring to your mental health and overall well being.

I'm Audrey Schoen, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing solo in Roseville, California. I specialize in helping anxious overachievers and people-pleasers transform overwhelming periods of change into opportunities for personal growth and authentic connection. Whether you're facing an anticipated career change or dealing with unexpected significant life changes, therapy for life transitions offers professional support to help you develop effective coping strategies and navigate uncertainty with greater confidence.

Understanding Why Life Transitions Feel So Overwhelming

For anxious overachievers, life transitions can feel particularly destabilizing to your mental health and emotional well being. You're used to having control, excelling at what you do, and meeting everyone's expectations. When major life changes throw you into uncharted territory, the familiar coping strategies that once served you well may no longer be effective. This can trigger intense emotional reactivity, self-doubt, and a desperate need to "figure it all out" immediately.

Significant life transitions challenge your sense of identity and disrupt the internal narratives you've constructed about yourself and your future. You might find yourself caught between excitement about new possibilities and grief for what you're leaving behind. This emotional turmoil is completely normal, yet it can feel overwhelming when you're navigating life transitions alone without adequate emotional support.

Understanding life transitions through a mental health lens helps normalize the complex feelings that arise during these periods. Major life transitions often impact not just your emotional well being, but your physical well being, relationships, and sense of purpose. Recognizing this broader impact can help you approach your transition with more self-awareness and compassion.

The Four Types of Life Transitions

Understanding the different types of life transitions can help you better process your experience and develop more effective coping strategies. Psychologist Nancy K. Schlossberg identified four main categories that each bring unique challenges to your mental health and well being:

Anticipated Transitions are the significant life changes you expect and plan for, such as graduating from college, getting married, starting a new job, moving to a new city, or becoming a parent. While you see them coming, these major life transitions still bring upheaval to your mental health and daily routines. You might have dreamed of that promotion for years, only to find the new role brings unexpected pressures that trigger anxiety and imposter syndrome, requiring new coping skills to manage effectively.

Unanticipated Transitions are life's curveballs—sudden job loss, unexpected illness, death of a family member, or relationship changes you didn't see coming. These significant life transitions feel profoundly destabilizing because you haven't had time to prepare mentally or emotionally. An unexpected crisis can force you to confront difficult emotions you've long avoided, leaving your mental health compromised and desperate for calm and effective coping strategies.

Nonevent Transitions refer to significant life changes you expected to happen but didn't—like not getting married by a certain age, being passed over for a promotion, or not having children when you planned. For people-pleasers, these common life transitions can be especially difficult for your mental health, as you might internalize the "failure" as a personal shortcoming rather than recognizing life's unpredictable nature.

Sleeper Transitions are gradual major life changes that accumulate over time, like the slow erosion of job satisfaction or a relationship that's slowly growing apart. You might feel a vague sense of unease about your mental health and well being without understanding why. These subtle life transitions are particularly challenging because their gradual nature makes them easy to dismiss until they reach a tipping point requiring significant coping strategies.

Why Anxious Overachievers Struggle with Change

If you're someone who has learned to manage anxiety through achievement and people-pleasing, navigating life transitions can feel like threats to your carefully constructed sense of security and mental health. You might find yourself caught in patterns that worked well in other contexts but create problems during periods of significant life changes:

Perfectionism becomes paralyzing when there's no clear "right" answer during major life transitions. When facing significant life changes, you're often making decisions without complete information, which can trigger intense anxiety for someone used to excelling through careful preparation and control, negatively impacting your mental health and well being.

People-pleasing creates internal conflict during life transitions when you're torn between what others expect and what you truly want. Major life changes often require you to disappoint someone or make choices that feel selfish, even when they're healthy decisions that support your mental health and personal growth.

Emotional disconnection becomes problematic when life transitions stir up intense feelings that challenge your mental health. You might be skilled at pushing through difficult emotions to accomplish goals, but significant life transitions require you to process and integrate emotional experiences rather than simply push past them, demanding new coping skills and emotional support.

Busyness as avoidance no longer works when navigating life transitions demands your attention. You can't schedule or achieve your way out of grief, uncertainty, or the need to rebuild your identity during major life changes. This pattern often compromises your physical well being and mental health, requiring more sustainable coping strategies.

These automatic patterns aren't character flaws—they're adaptive responses that likely served you well in the past. However, during significant life transitions, they can keep you stuck in cycles of anxiety and disconnection rather than helping you grow through the change while maintaining your mental health and overall well being.

My Therapeutic Approach to Life Transitions

In my solo practice in Roseville, California, I work specifically with individuals and couples who are tired of internal chaos and seeking genuine calm and connection during life transitions. My approach to life transition counseling is deeply personalized, focusing on understanding your unique experiences and the internal narratives that shape your responses to significant life changes.

Life transitions therapy in my practice addresses not just the immediate challenges of change, but the deeper patterns that affect your mental health and well being during these crucial periods. I believe that major life transitions offer profound opportunities for personal growth and increased self-awareness when approached with the right support and coping strategies.

Comprehensive Assessment and Treatment Planning

I begin life transition counseling with a comprehensive intake process that includes detailed measures to help us gauge your starting point and inform our treatment plan. This isn't just about understanding your current situation—it's about identifying the deeper patterns and experiences that influence how you navigate life transitions and maintain your mental health.

During our first session, I focus on getting to know you, your background, the contributing factors to your current struggles with life transitions, and setting clear goals for our work together. This collaborative approach ensures that life transitions therapy is customized to your specific needs rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't address your unique mental health and well being concerns.

Evidence-Based Modalities for Rapid Progress

I use several powerful therapeutic approaches in life transition counseling that often create rapid progress, which can be highly motivating when you're feeling stuck during major life transitions:

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is one of my primary tools as a Certified Master ART Practitioner. This eye-movement-based therapy can rapidly resolve distress from painful memories or experiences that may be complicating your life transitions. Many clients experience significant improvement in their mental health in just a few sessions, helping you move past emotional barriers that keep you stuck during significant life changes.

Brainspotting helps you access and process deeper emotional material that traditional talk therapy might not reach during life transitions therapy. As a certified Brainspotting therapist, I use this approach to help you move through impasses and gain new perspectives on your situation during major life transitions. This can be particularly helpful when you feel emotionally shut down or disconnected from your inner experience while navigating life transitions.

Relational Life Therapy (RLT) offers a transformative approach for individuals and couples struggling with relationship patterns that emerge or intensify during life transitions. This specialized form of life transition counseling isn't traditional couples therapy—it's a structured, direct approach that helps you identify and change the unconscious patterns that create conflict and disconnection during significant life changes.

The RLT Process for Relationship Transitions

When working with couples during life transitions, I use the three-phase RLT approach that specifically addresses how major life changes impact relationships and mental health:

Phase 1: Assessment and Pattern Recognition involves identifying your specific conflict patterns during life transitions and understanding how each partner contributes to escalation during significant life changes. We establish clear goals for what success would look like and what you want to be getting that you're not getting now during this period of change. This phase includes ground rules, preliminary coping skills like appropriate time-outs, and psychoeducation about boundaries that support mental health during life transitions.

Phase 2: Trauma Work addresses the past experiences and triggers that prevent change even when you want it during life transitions. We explore how your family-of-origin experiences and life adaptations are impacting your current relationship patterns during significant life changes. This isn't a lengthy exploration for its own sake—it's focused, direct work aimed at understanding how your past is affecting your present mental health so you can navigate life transitions more effectively.

Phase 3: Skills Development teaches you concrete communication skills and coping strategies for healthier interaction during life transitions. When you hit roadblocks to using these new skills, we directly address the barriers so you can be successful at implementing them in your daily life during major life changes.

Specialized Communication Tools

Rather than traditional communication techniques, I teach the feedback wheel in life transition counseling—a structured approach that allows one partner to bring up an issue during life transitions and provide their partner with a pathway to repair. This unique method involves one partner sharing what they saw or heard during the significant life change, what they made up about it, how they feel about what they made up, and what their partner can do to repair. The other partner listens to understand and offers what they can to repair, without sharing their own perspective in that moment.

What to Expect in Therapy for Life Transitions

Initial Sessions and Treatment Planning

Our life transitions therapy work together begins with understanding your unique situation and creating a personalized treatment plan that addresses your mental health and well being during this period of change. I may make recommendations for additional support to complement our life transition counseling, always considering you within the broader context of your life systems during major life transitions.

For those seeking therapy for life transitions with specific issues like single-incident trauma or phobias, I often incorporate ART early in treatment. For most clients dealing with significant life changes, we'll likely use a combination of insight-oriented talk therapy along with ART and Brainspotting sessions to create rapid progress and motivation during your life transitions.

Session Structure and Frequency

Life transitions therapy is customized to your needs and the specific challenges of your major life changes. Some clients benefit from weekly sessions, while others prefer longer sessions every other week during their life transitions. We can establish a standing appointment or schedule more flexibly based on what works best for your situation and the nature of your significant life changes.

For couples navigating life transitions, I recommend 80-minute sessions, typically every two weeks, with an initial three-month commitment to doing work both in and out of sessions. This allows us to determine if we're making progress with your life transition counseling and if you want to continue this important work for your mental health and relationship well being.

Progress Monitoring and Adjustment

At approximately three to six months, we'll reassess using the same measures from your intake to determine progress in your life transitions therapy and identify areas where work still needs to be done regarding your mental health and well being during significant life changes. We update goals regularly to stay on track together, ensuring that our life transition counseling remains relevant and effective as you navigate your major life transitions.

You can expect me to be actively engaged and direct in our therapy for life transitions work together. I use a mix of reflective and directive approaches, always working collaboratively while providing the guidance and structure that anxious overachievers often appreciate during life transitions.

Practical Coping Strategies for Life Transitions

While professional support provides the foundation for navigating life transitions effectively, developing your own toolkit of coping strategies is essential for building lasting resilience and maintaining mental health during major life changes. These effective coping strategies work particularly well for anxious overachievers who value learning and skill-building during life transitions:

Mindful Self-Awareness

Developing greater self awareness of your internal experience is crucial during life transitions and supports your overall mental health. This means learning to notice your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations without immediately trying to fix or change them during significant life changes. For someone who's typically disconnected from emotions, this can feel uncomfortable at first, but it's essential for making conscious choices rather than reacting automatically during major life transitions.

Practice checking in with yourself throughout the day during your life transitions. What are you feeling? What thoughts are running through your mind? How is your body responding to stress during these significant life changes? This self awareness creates space between stimulus and response, allowing you to choose more helpful reactions and maintain better mental health during life transitions.

Structured Journaling

Writing can serve as a bridge to your inner world, especially when you feel emotionally disconnected during life transitions. Try structured journaling prompts that help you process the complexity of your major life changes and support your mental health:

• What am I excited about regarding this life transition?
• What am I grieving or afraid of losing during these significant life changes?
• What stories am I telling myself about this situation?
• What would I do if I trusted myself completely during this major life transition?
• How can I honor both my excitement and my fears about these life changes?

Regular journaling helps you identify patterns in your thinking and emotional responses during life transitions, providing valuable information for our therapy work and supporting your overall well being.

Boundary Practice and Coping Skills

Life transitions often require you to set new boundaries or adjust existing ones as part of maintaining your mental health during significant life changes. This might mean saying no to additional commitments while you're navigating life transitions, or setting limits on advice from well-meaning family members during major life changes.

Practice visualizing your boundaries at the beginning of each day during your life transitions. Throughout the day, reset them as needed, softening walls where you might be too rigid and strengthening appropriate containment where you might be over-extending yourself during these significant life changes. These boundary-setting coping skills become essential tools for maintaining your well being during major life transitions.

Embracing "Good Enough" During Life Changes

For perfectionist overachievers, navigating life transitions requires embracing uncertainty and "good enough" decisions that support your mental health. This doesn't mean lowering your standards—it means recognizing that some decisions during major life transitions can't be made perfectly, and that moving forward with imperfect information is often better than remaining paralyzed by analysis during significant life changes.

Building and Maintaining Support Networks

Even if it feels safer to handle everything alone, having a strong support system is crucial during life transitions for your mental health and well being. This might include friends, family members, mentors, or other professionals who can provide different types of emotional support during major life changes.

Practice receiving support without feeling obligated to reciprocate immediately during your life transitions. Learn to share your struggles without minimizing them or immediately shifting focus to helping others during these significant life changes. These coping skills for relationship building not only help during major life transitions but enrich all your relationships and support your overall mental health.

Specialized Services for Complex Life Transitions

Intensives and Retreats

For clients seeking faster progress or dealing with particularly complex life transitions, I offer intensive sessions and retreats. These extended sessions allow you to dive deep into specific issues related to your major life changes and experience significant breakthroughs in a shorter timeframe. Intensives can be particularly helpful when you're facing time-sensitive decisions during life transitions or when traditional weekly life transition counseling feels too slow for your mental health needs.

Online Therapy Throughout California and Texas

I provide secure online life transitions therapy sessions for clients throughout California and Texas, making support accessible regardless of your location during major life changes. This flexibility is particularly valuable during life transitions when your physical location might be changing or when travel to an office feels overwhelming while managing significant life changes.

Entrepreneur and Professional Support

Many of my clients are entrepreneurs or high-achieving professionals navigating career transitions, business changes, or work-life balance challenges. I understand the unique pressures faced by driven individuals and can help you navigate professional life transitions while maintaining your mental health, well being, and relationships during these major life changes.

When Professional Support Makes the Difference

While friends might say "this is just part of life," that perspective isn't helpful when you're awake at 3 AM, drowning in uncertainty and self-doubt during major life transitions. Professional life transition counseling provides several crucial elements that self-help and well-meaning advice often can't offer for your mental health during significant life changes:

Objective perspective from someone who isn't invested in the outcome of your decisions during life transitions, helping you see possibilities you might miss when you're caught in anxiety or overwhelm during major life changes.

Specialized tools like ART and Brainspotting that can rapidly address the underlying experiences keeping you stuck during life transitions, rather than just managing surface-level symptoms while your mental health suffers during significant life changes.

Structured approach to processing complex emotions and making difficult decisions during life transitions, particularly valuable for someone who typically relies on logic and planning during major life changes.

Non judgmental space to explore fears, desires, and uncertainties without judgment or pressure to make decisions before you're ready during your life transitions.

New skills development for emotional regulation, communication skills, and relationship building that serve you far beyond the current life transition and support your ongoing mental health and well being.

Building Resilience Through Life Transitions

Learning to build resilience during life transitions is crucial for your long-term mental health and well being. Resilience isn't about avoiding difficult emotions during major life changes—it's about developing the coping strategies and emotional support systems that help you navigate significant life transitions while maintaining your sense of self and connection to others.

In life transition counseling, we work together to identify your existing strengths and build upon them during major life changes. This might involve recognizing how you've successfully managed previous life transitions, identifying family members or friends who provide meaningful support, or discovering new coping skills that align with your values and lifestyle during significant life changes.

Personal development during life transitions often involves challenging old assumptions about yourself and your capabilities. Major life changes provide unique opportunities to experiment with new ways of being, develop new skills, and strengthen your sense of self-awareness in ways that support your mental health and overall well being.

Frequently Asked Questions About Life Transition Counseling

What makes life transitions therapy different from general therapy?

Life transition counseling focuses specifically on the unique challenges that come with significant life changes and their impact on mental health. Rather than addressing long-standing mental health conditions, this approach helps you navigate specific periods of major life transitions, develop effective coping strategies, and use life changes as opportunities for personal growth and increased self-awareness.

How do I know if I need professional support for my life transitions?

Consider seeking therapy for life transitions if you're experiencing persistent anxiety about your future, feeling emotionally overwhelmed or shut down during major life changes, struggling to make decisions, finding that your usual coping strategies aren't working during significant life transitions, or if relationships are being strained by your life changes. You don't need to be in crisis—proactive life transition counseling can make major life transitions much smoother for your mental health.

How long does therapy for life transitions typically take?

The length of life transitions therapy varies based on your specific situation and goals. Some clients experience significant relief in just a few sessions, particularly when we use modalities like ART for specific traumatic aspects of their life transitions. Others benefit from longer-term life transition counseling as they navigate extended periods of major life changes. We'll regularly assess progress and adjust our approach as needed to support your mental health during significant life transitions.

Can therapy help with positive transitions that still feel overwhelming?

Absolutely. Even positive major life changes like getting married, having a baby, or receiving a promotion can trigger anxiety, grief for what you're leaving behind, or identity confusion that impacts your mental health. These feelings during life transitions are normal, and life transition counseling can help you process the complexity of change regardless of whether the significant life changes are generally positive or negative.

Do you work with couples going through life transitions together?

Yes, I specialize in helping couples navigate life transitions using Relational Life Therapy. Whether you're dealing with career changes, family transitions, or relationship evolution, couples therapy can help you support each other more effectively during major life changes and use the life transition to strengthen your relationship rather than letting significant life changes drive you apart, supporting both partners' mental health and well being.

What if I've tried therapy before and it didn't help with my life transitions?

Many of my clients have had previous therapy experiences that didn't address their needs during life transitions effectively. My approach to life transition counseling is different—it's active, direct, and focused on rapid progress using specialized modalities. We'll work together to understand what didn't work before during your previous attempts at navigating life transitions and create a more effective approach tailored to your specific needs and learning style for managing major life changes and supporting your mental health.

Taking the Next Step Toward Confident Navigation of Life Changes

Life transitions don't have to be something you just endure while your mental health suffers. With the right support and effective coping strategies, major life changes can become opportunities for profound personal growth, increased self-awareness, and more authentic living. If you're tired of internal chaos during life transitions and ready to develop genuine calm and confidence, life transition counseling can provide the personalized support you need for navigating significant life changes.

In my solo practice in Roseville, California, I work specifically with anxious overachievers and people-pleasers who are ready to move beyond surface-level coping strategies during life transitions and address the deeper patterns that keep them stuck during major life changes. Using evidence-based approaches like Accelerated Resolution Therapy, Brainspotting, and Relational Life Therapy, we can work together to help you emerge from your life transition stronger, more connected, and more confident in your ability to handle whatever significant life changes life brings while maintaining your mental health and well being.

Many clients experience rapid progress early in our life transitions therapy work, which provides motivation to continue building the coping skills and insights that serve them long after therapy ends. My comprehensive, measurement-based approach ensures that our life transition counseling work together is effective and tailored to your specific situation during major life changes.

Whether you're facing an anticipated career change, dealing with unexpected loss, or navigating relationship changes, you don't have to face these life transitions alone. I offer both in-person sessions at my Roseville, California location and convenient online therapy for life transitions throughout California and Texas.

If you're ready to transform your experience of major life changes and develop lasting coping strategies for navigating life's inevitable life transitions, I invite you to reach out. Together, we can help you move from overwhelming uncertainty during significant life changes to confident navigation of whatever major life transitions life brings your way, supporting your mental health and overall well being throughout the process.

Contact Audrey Schoen, LMFT today to learn more about life transitions therapy and to discuss how this specialized approach to life transition counseling can support you during your period of significant life changes. Don't let another sleepless night pass wondering if things will ever feel manageable again during your life transitions—professional support can make all the difference in how you experience and grow through life's major life changes while maintaining your mental health and well being.