Ask Dr Alla is a column built on one thing: your questions. You send me something you are carrying, anonymously and in as much detail as you want, and I answer selected questions here, one at a time, roughly every week or two.
I’m a clinical psychologist. For more than fifteen years I have worked with women, most of them in the second half of life. That is the heart of what I write about here. The door is a little wider than that too: questions about relationships, attachment, intimacy, and dating are welcome at any life stage, and you do not have to be a woman in midlife to ask.
The kind of thing women write to me about: identity and not recognising yourself, perimenopause and the nervous system, the cost of being the strong one, body image and ageing, the inner critic, becoming invisible, ambivalence about therapy, the parts of you asking to be heard, and what happens inside relationships.
How I answer: I am not trying to fix you, and you are not broken. I think each question through the way I would clinically, in plain language, nervous-system-aware, and often from inside my own experience as much as from the consulting room. No wellness clichés. No “just love yourself.” No tidy ending pretending the hard thing resolved.
A few honest notes. Names are changed and identifying details softened. I read every submission, and I cannot answer them all. It is free to read. And it is not a crisis service: if you are in immediate danger or thinking of harming yourself, please contact your local emergency line right now.
Two things, then. Subscribe, so the answers come to you. And if there is something you are carrying that you would want a psychologist’s read on, send it. Your question might be the next letter.
You can send your questions here:
https://drallademutska.com/ask-dr-alla
I’m glad you’re here. Alla