Meet Mollie

Mollie Bass, LMFT, PMH-C

Licensed in Illinois

Relationships can start to feel complicated long before they look broken from the outside.

Sometimes the hardest part is not one big rupture. It is the slow accumulation of things that go unnamed: the planning, remembering, anticipating, managing, reminding, adjusting, and emotional tracking that keep a household, relationship, or family moving.

Over time, that invisible labor can become a source of resentment, distance, and disconnection. One partner may feel like they are carrying the mental load alone. The other may feel criticized, shut out, or unsure how to step in. Both may be exhausted by conversations that start with logistics and end somewhere much deeper: feeling unseen, unsupported, unappreciated, or alone.

I work with individuals and couples navigating the emotional, practical, and relational work of connection. My focus includes couples therapy, relationship therapy, complex family dynamics, the transition to parenthood, perinatal mental health, and the division of labor in relationships.

Many of the clients I work with are trying to understand how things became so imbalanced. They may love their partner and still feel distant. They may want things to feel more mutual, but not know how to talk about resentment without starting another fight. They may be preparing for or adjusting to parenthood and realizing that the relationship they used to have no longer fits the life they are now living.

A significant part of my work centers on helping individuals and couples name and rebalance the mental load and division of labor that shape relationships and family life—the expectations, responsibilities, schedules, emotional labor, household management, caregiving roles, and unspoken assumptions that often drive conflict more than either partner realizes. We will look honestly at what each of you has been carrying, what has become unsustainable, and what needs to shift for the relationship to feel more connected, mutual, and livable.

I also specialize in perinatal mental health, including postpartum depression and anxiety, fertility challenges, pregnancy and infant loss, and the identity shifts that can come with becoming a parent. These experiences are often more tender and complicated than people expect. You may feel grateful and overwhelmed, attached and lonely, capable and completely unlike yourself. My work is to help you slow down, name what is happening, and make sense of it without minimizing how much you have been holding.

My approach

I am a direct and grounded therapist who believes honesty and warmth can coexist. I do not sit behind a wall. I bring transparency, humor, reflection, and active engagement into the room.

Therapy with me is not about assigning blame or rehearsing the same conflict more politely. It is about understanding the patterns that keep you stuck: how conversations escalate, how needs go unspoken, how resentment builds, how family history shows up in present relationships, and how protection can start to look like withdrawal, criticism, overfunctioning, defensiveness, or emotional shutdown.

My approach is relational, attachment-based, and systems-oriented. That means we will pay attention to both the emotional cycle between you and the larger context shaping it: family roles, gendered expectations, cultural messages, caregiving demands, stress, identity, and the ways each person learned to manage closeness, conflict, and vulnerability.

I integrate Emotionally Focused Therapy, Family Systems Theory, Attachment Theory, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, and practical tools for communication and repair. With couples, I also draw from the Gottman Method to help partners slow down conflict, rebuild trust, communicate more clearly, and create a more sustainable division of emotional and practical labor.

For couples preparing for marriage or long-term commitment, I offer premarital counseling and Prepare/Enrich when it is a good fit. This work can help partners talk more honestly about expectations, conflict, family, finances, intimacy, values, and the kind of shared life they want to build.

My background

I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Chicago, providing virtual therapy for clients in Chicago and throughout Illinois. I hold a Master’s degree in Child Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University Northwest.

I’m a certified Perinatal Mental Health Specialist (PMH-C) through Postpartum Support International, trained in Level 2 Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and certified in Prepare/Enrich premarital counseling. I’m also an active member of Postpartum Support International and the Illinois Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.