How I work with this
In working with parental requests, we explore how your own deep emotional patterns (schemas) are activated in daily contact with your child, causing you to react from a state of childhood vulnerability or rigid defense (modes). Rearing difficulties often exacerbate a black-and-white view of the world, where you feel either like a perfect caregiver or an absolute destroyer of your child's life (splitting). Such sharp fluctuations are characteristic of a fragile psychic organization (borderline personality organization), whereas in a more integrated structure (neurotic personality structure), intense guilt, doubt, and internal prohibitions against one's own anger or fatigue come to the forefront.
We also analyze in detail how you project expectations, fears, or traits of significant figures from your own past onto the child (transference) to learn to separate your personal experience from the reality of the child. The goal of our work is to help you develop the capacity to tolerate mixed, contradictory feelings toward your child and yourself (tolerance of ambivalence). This allows you to integrate different parts of your "Self" (identity integration) and become a stable support for the child, capable of holding their affects without destroying your own psyche.
Do you recognise yourself?
- ✓ constant guilt over not being a "good enough" mother or father
- ✓ fear of harming the child's psyche with your reactions
- ✓ sudden outbursts of rage at child tantrums, rapidly followed by deep remorse
- ✓ total exhaustion from the internal demand to be an ideal and always patient figure
- ✓ periodic feeling that the child is deliberately manipulating or emotionally abusing you
- ✓ anxiety because the child's developmental pace does not match expectations or the success of other children
- ✓ alienation and conflicts with your partner due to fundamentally different views on parenting
If you recognised 3+ points — it is a good reason to talk to a psychologist.
Approach & Methodology
Parenthood inevitably brings the deepest layers of our own psyche to the surface. When a child navigates developmental stages, encounters difficulties, or exhibits intense emotions, it frequently triggers deeply hidden deficits in the adult. The pain, exhaustion, and feelings of helplessness in contact with the child arise not only from their challenging behavior, but because such situations mercilessly mirror our own early, often unprocessed experiences.
In my office, we explore what lies beneath the desperate desire to find the "right parenting strategy." Quite often, a massive underlying anxiety of the parent is hidden behind this. We work on how unconscious conflicts play out in interaction with your son or daughter, when, due to one's own vulnerability, it becomes difficult to see the child as a separate individual with their own needs rather than as a confirmation of one's own parental inadequacy.
Questions & Answers
Doesn't my annoyance at my child mean that I am a bad person and shouldn't have had children?
Anger at a child is a natural human emotion that most often arises due to critical exhaustion or the activation of your old inner traumas. In the therapeutic space, we do not judge these feelings, but decipher their true nature so that they stop scaring you and uncontrollably managing your behavior.
How does my own difficult childhood experience affect my child now?
Unprocessed pain forces us to look at the baby through the prism of past trauma, which can lead to suffocating overprotection or, conversely, unconscious emotional detachment. Processing this experience in therapy frees up space for real, living, and safe contact with the child.
Will you give me clear advice on how to correctly punish or encourage a child?
No, I do not issue instructions and protocols for parenting. My task is to help you establish contact with your own inner world. When you begin to understand the mechanisms of your reactions and reduce anxiety, the ability to intuitively and accurately recognize the needs of your specific child appears naturally.
How much time is needed to learn to react calmly to children's tantrums?
The ability to safely withstand and digest a child's emotions (containment) does not appear instantly. It is formed gradually, in parallel with how you learn to withstand and accept your own complex and contradictory experiences in our therapeutic relationship. The dynamics of this process depend on the depth of your internal conflicts and your readiness for self-exploration.
Process
How the work unfolds
Initial contact
Write in the messenger or leave a request on the site. Do not look for the right words — I will help you carefully start our journey and we will choose a convenient meeting time.
First consultation
A safe space for acquaintance, where you will feel if my approach suits you. This meeting does not oblige you to anything and only helps determine the next steps.
Regular therapy
Meetings are held 1-2 times a week for 50 minutes, online or face-to-face. A stable schedule is necessary for deep transformation and the development of your internal supports.
Payment and booking
The session fee is 50 USD (in hryvnias). Please read the Public Offer. The time is finally reserved and confirmed after payment.
Contact
Book a consultation
I reply on weekdays. If you are in crisis — call me directly.
Or write directly