Mother Hunger®

What Mother Hunger® is

A name for something you have been carrying a long time.

Mother Hunger® is a term developed by psychotherapist and author Kelly McDaniel. It describes the specific grief that forms when a mother was unable to provide the nurturing, protection, or guidance her daughter needed, whether through death, addiction, mental illness, emotional absence, or estrangement.

It is not just sadness about a difficult childhood. It is an attachment wound that lives in the body and shapes how women relate to themselves and others long into adulthood.

Weeks 1 & 2  The three elements of secure attachment and what happens when one or more is missing.

Weeks 3 & 4  How Mother Hunger® shapes adult relationships, self-worth, and nervous system response.

Weeks 5 & 6  The connection between maternal loss, attachment patterns, and how grief is carried now.

Weeks 7 & 8  Tools for beginning the integration process, and what ongoing support looks like after the course ends.

The facilitator

Angela Schellenberg is a licensed trauma and grief therapist and certified Mother Hunger® Facilitator. She has co-facilitated early mother loss retreats with Hope Edelman and taught at the Omega Institute.

She lost her own mother twice: first to mental illness at 11, and again to three consecutive strokes at 22. That history is part of what brought her to this framework, and part of what she brings to the room.