Why I do this

I am living this too

Because I am in it. I am going through this transition myself, and I watch the women around me - my friends, my clients - moving through it too, often alone, often certain that something has gone wrong with them.

Nothing has gone wrong with them. This is the passage. And it is brutal when you go through it unmet - lost, doubting your worth, measuring yourself against everything you were told you should have become by now. I have felt that. I have sat with women inside it.

I have also seen the other side. When a woman is supported through this time, it stops being only a loss. She puts down what was never hers to carry and comes back to herself - her values, her passion, the aliveness underneath the roles. Watching that turn happen is one of the most beautiful things I know. That is why I do this work.

What this offers

A container for real change

Self-acceptance is not a topic in this programme. It is the foundation - the quality of attention we bring to every session, and that the group learns to bring to itself. You will feel it in how the space is held.

This is a small, closed group of 12 sessions - not drop-in, not a course. A relational container where trust builds over three months, depth forms, and real things can be said and felt. What happens here stays here.

Each month has its own arc - but the thread running through all of them is the same: returning you to yourself.

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A body you can inhabit without criticismAcceptance of physical change as transition - not something to be fixed or overcome.
◦
Self-compassion that is felt, not just understoodThe capacity to meet yourself - including the difficult parts - with genuine warmth rather than judgment.
◦
Identity rooted in what you choose, not what you have accumulatedKnowing who you are when you are not being useful, performing, or managing others' comfort.
◦
Joy and desire as legitimate parts of your lifeNot rewards for completing the hard work - recognised as necessary, not indulgent.
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A voice you trust and a life you have actually chosenClarity about what matters - expressed honestly, lived genuinely.

Why a group

The group is part of the medicine

Doing this alongside other women is part of what makes it work, not a nice extra. Research on group CBT for women in this transition suggests it helps: the difficulties and symptoms of midlife intrude less on daily life, mood and quality of life improve, and the changes hold months after the group ends. What shifts is how the hard parts are held - how you understand them, how much of the day they are allowed to run, and how alone you feel inside them. Decades of research also find group work matches one-to-one therapy - and a group gives you the one thing individual work cannot: other women in the same season, saying the unsaid parts out loud.

The research, for those who want it: randomised trials of group CBT for menopausal symptoms found meaningful drops in how problematic women rated hot flushes and night sweats (Ayers et al., 2012, Menopause, in women going through the transition; Mann et al., 2012, The Lancet Oncology, and Fenlon et al., 2020, Psycho-Oncology, both in women after breast cancer treatment). In Mann et al. the problem rating dropped without any change in measured flush frequency. Mediation analysis showed the benefit came from changed appraisal of symptoms, not mood (Norton, Chilcot & Hunter, 2014, Menopause). A meta-analysis of 67 head-to-head studies found group formats match individual therapy on outcomes (Burlingame et al., 2016, Psychotherapy).

Programme structure

Three months. One continuous thread.

Month One · Sessions 1-4

Body, Emotion,
and the Inner Voice

Building the container. Establishing the kind of safety that allows real things to be said. The first month works through the three threads that meet most insistently in midlife - the body that has changed, the emotions that competence has been masking, and the inner voice that has been auditing all of it.

Arriving - being here as an act of self-regard
What you are actually feeling - the emotional layer underneath the busyness
The inner critic and the inner ally - the voice that runs underneath everything
The mirror is not the enemy - returning to a body that has changed

Month Two · Sessions 5-8

The Strategies
That Built You

The middle month turns to the ways you learned to cope, achieve, and hold it all together. These strategies kept you safe once, and they deserve gratitude for that. This is the month of seeing them clearly, grieving them honestly, and letting go of the conditioning and the shoulds you no longer need to carry.

The strategies that built you, and where they stop serving you
Gratitude for what once kept you safe
Grieving the roles, the shoulds, the conditioning
Letting go of what is no longer yours to carry

Month Three · Sessions 9-12

Passion, Values,
and the Soul's Calling

The most expansive month. When the old strategies loosen their grip, something long set aside begins to return - passion, creativity, and a sense of what is calling you now. This is where you find your voice, clarify what genuinely matters, and come back to who you are underneath it all.

Passion and creativity, reclaiming what was surrendered
The soul's calling - what wants to come alive now
Values you live, not the ones you were handed
Finding your voice, and coming home to yourself

Your facilitators

Two practitioners. One programme.

Dr Alla Demutska

Clinical Psychologist · DPsych (Clinical) · AHPRA

I am a clinical psychologist with 15+ years of experience across Australia, Singapore, and internationally. I am Clinical Director of Counselling and Psychotherapy at The School of Positive Psychology in Singapore, where I design and teach a number of modules, including Advanced Trauma among others.

My primary modalities are EMDR, schema therapy, ACT, attachment-informed work, and polyvagal theory. I work with women in midlife - perimenopause, identity, body image, the second half of life - as both my clinical specialism and my own current territory.

I am 48. I do not write or teach from a position of having arrived. I am in process alongside the women I work with.

Dr Yvonne Sum

Leadership Specialist · Co-founder, 5Echo

Yvonne is a published international author on leadership and strategy, and co-founder of 5Echo, a global consultancy supporting C-level executives. She brings deep experience in how high-achieving women lead, perform, and navigate power in professional life - what the executive world asks of them, and what it costs.

The pairing is the structural choice. Clinical depth alongside a working understanding of what midlife actually does to a capable woman's professional life.

Investment

Introductory pricing

Programme fee

USD $1,500

the full programme · 12 sessions · 3 months

All 12 weekly live sessions (90 minutes each), between-session prompts, private cohort group space, and ongoing access to the materials. Small closed group of 12 to 14 women.

USD $125 per 90-minute session with two experienced facilitators in the room - well below the cost of equivalent individual psychotherapy (typically USD $200-300 for a 50-minute session in Singapore and Australia).

Pay USD $1,500 upfront, or hold your place with USD $200 deposit and the balance USD $1,300 by 17 August 2026.

Dates & time

Starts Wed 16 September 2026
Finishes Wed 2 December 2026

5:00 pm Bali · Singapore (UTC+8)
7pm Sydney · 6pm Tokyo · 10am London

Check this time in your timezone →

Sessions run weekly at the same time across 12 weeks.

Hold your place · $200 or apply without deposit →

This is a psychoeducational and facilitation-based group and is not a substitute for individual psychotherapy, mental health treatment, or crisis support. If you require individual care, referral pathways are available.

10% of every payment goes to PKP Community Centre in Bali, which supports women and children escaping domestic violence. The equivalent of USD $84 per month supports one woman to leave a violent situation. Learn more →

New · Five-Session Group · Two Facilitators

A shorter group: five sessions on menopause and midlife

A second, shorter group I co-facilitate with Singapore counsellor and psychotherapist Vinti Mittal - the two of us in the room together, every session. Five weekly sessions, online and live, for women moving through perimenopause and menopause.

We work with the life stage as a whole, not only the physical change: the roles and responsibilities that stack up in these years, and what this transition is asking of you. Each session opens with what stayed with you from the previous one, and there is protected space for sharing every week. Nothing is recorded.

The five weeks:

1 · Orientation and your map - where you are in this passage, and why your symptoms may not match the leaflet
2 · The body - what is changing, what genuinely helps, and a different way of looking
3 · The emotions - the feeling you show and the one underneath it, and a practice that works at 3am
4 · The inner voice - the commentary that audits you in this season, and the first lines of a kinder one
5 · Integration and expert Q&A - your questions, answered by a professional the group chooses

Your facilitators

Dr Alla Demutska

Clinical Psychologist · DPsych (Clinical) · AHPRA

Clinical psychologist with 15+ years of experience across Australia, Singapore, and internationally, specialising in women in midlife - perimenopause, identity, body image, the second half of life. My full bio is above, with the three-month programme.

Vinti Mittal

Counsellor & Psychotherapist · RegCLR, CMSAC · SAC Registered Clinical Supervisor

Vinti is a mental health professional with 18 years of experience in counselling and psychotherapy. She holds a Master’s in Counselling from Monash University, Australia, and is a Registered Counsellor and Clinical Member of the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC), where she has served on the Ethics Board since 2021. She led SACAC Counselling for many years and was Director and Clinical Director at Lyra Singapore, leading clinical operations for a major international mental health provider.

She works with clients across the lifespan in a Person-Centred, holistic way, integrating evidence-based approaches including ACT, CBT, MBCT, the Gottman Method, and expressive therapies. A third-culture kid and long-term expat herself, she has a special interest in multicultural counselling and in guiding women through life stages, with a particular focus on menopause and its impact on every part of a woman’s life. She founded the Singapore International School Counsellors Network and supervises counsellors across Singapore’s international schools.

Group fee

USD $400

the full series · 5 sessions · founding-cohort rate

All five weekly live sessions (90 minutes each) in a small closed group of women, with both facilitators in every session. The same women across all five weeks - this is not a drop-in.

USD $80 per 90-minute session with two experienced facilitators in the room.

Dates

Begins Monday 26 October 2026

Five weekly sessions of 90 minutes, online and live. Session time announced shortly.

Apply for the five-session group

This is a psychoeducational and support group and is not group therapy, individual psychotherapy, or medical care. If you require individual support, referral pathways are available.

Make The Second Half
of Life The Best Half

You may recognise yourself here

I am living this too

A container for real change

The group is part of the medicine