Some things to know about me:
I’m a licensed clinical social worker, one of the credentials approved by NY state for practicing as a psychotherapist. (The main other approved providers are PhD psychologists and MD psychiatrists.) I divide my time between a mental health clinic and my private practice in New York City. My practices focuses on helping adults and adolescents with counseling for life changes, job stresses, motivation, recovery from addictions, and managing anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma and PTSD.
Training
I studied for my Master’s in Social Work at Stony Brook University, and graduated with specializations in health care and alcohol/substance abuse. My internships took me first to a public school where I worked with guidance counselors, parents and students on school and family issues, and then to the Addiction Institute at Roosevelt Hospital where I did group and individual treatment for a wide-ranging clientele, from financial executives to college students.
After graduating, I became a therapist at a substance abuse clinic in Brooklyn. It was an intense weekly schedule that gave me experience in engaging reluctant clients and helping them develop motivation and coping skills. I was also invited to join the Stony Brook School of Social Work’s faculty as an adjunct lecturer and taught classes in human behavior, psychopathology and advanced group therapy for several years. (If you want to learn something–teach it, I’ve always believed.)
After that, I went to a nationally recognized substance abuse program in Manhattan. That’s where I gained real insight into the ways addiction and mental illness can wreak havoc on the whole family and how helping the stressed mother of a teen drug user can be as critical as treating the user herself. During this time I went to NYU Silver School of Social Work for a certificate in advanced clinical practice, where I studied with Eda Goldstein and Jeffrey Seinfeld. That prepared me for a shift to the mental health field. I had found I liked working with the whole person in the context of their life, family, job and community—that’s when you could nurture real growth. I began this phase of my career working at a clinic serving people with severe mental illness. We worked as a multi-disciplinary team of doctors, psychotherapists and art, music and drama therapists in a cutting-edge program focused on reintegrating people into their larger community rather than cloistering them in a dead-end program. This is where I really sharpened my diagnostic skills and worked with clients on the complex interactions of their sometimes multiple disorders. I also got to know New York City’s safety net of resources for individuals and families in crisis.
More recently, I have been working with individuals and families in a federally-funded mental health clinic—addressing everyday issues like ADHD in teens and adults, troubled relationships, family conflicts, financial stress, trauma and addictions.
Before becoming a therapist, I was a graphic designer and web developer/programmer so I bring an added understanding of the context—and challenges—of working in a creative field, as a creative or techie in a corporate setting and as a business owner.
Approach to therapy
Millions of words have been slung in ideological wars over this or that therapeutic philosophy or style. I have a much simpler viewpoint: what can this therapist offer that is going to work for this individual seeking help with this defined problem in the current context of their life? Every individual alive is grappling with the domains I would categorize as the self, the world and the future. For most individuals, problems are seldom as simple as those covered in self-help books or on popular TV shows.
Another key variable in the process is time. Therapy was once considered as a years-long commitment, sometimes in multiple sessions a week.
