Hi. I’m Melissa
I am passionate about helping clients break free from shame, heal deep wounds, and feel empowered to live with confidence and authenticity.
Finding the right therapist in New York City can feel overwhelming. I’ve often thought there should be therapist speed-dating events—quick introductions to help you find someone you truly connect with. That connection is essential for feeling safe, understood, and supported. Once you find a therapist who seems like a good fit, therapy can give you a sense of hope, but it can also feel very vulnerable, stirring up deep emotions. We can experience intense feelings of shame when we open up about our fears, shortcomings, and losses. I aim to create a space where you do not feel alone when sharing your pain. It is important to me to help you feel safe, understood, and some hope that together we can find a way forward.
I am not a stranger to pain or shame. It's my priority to provide a caring, understanding, and non-judgmental environment where you feel safe to explore your thoughts and feelings and the circumstances affecting them. I want to listen closely and deeply to your story and to guide our time together in a way that helps you heal and work toward meaningful change.
My private office is centrally located in Manhattan, in the neighborhood of Murray Hill, not far from Grand Central Station.
Therapy is a commitment that takes courage, especially if you want deep and lasting change. I hope you will allow me to accompany you on that journey.
What working with me like?
I love working with individuals in the areas of sexual health, self-esteem, anxiety, and unsatisfying relationship patterns. Challenges in these areas can affect feelings of worth but difficulties like these are not uncommon among accomplished individuals who have a lot to offer. Sometimes pain makes it difficult to see all the good in who you are and what you bring to the world.
Inner healing can take time. Often, there is some immediate relief once you begin therapy. And then the deeper work begins. I use a combination of what's called psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and feminist therapy in my work with clients. I work intensively with clients, which means we will usually meet 1x per week (some people come 2 or 3 times per week) for 45 minutes each at my office in Murray Hill (Manhattan).
My Education and Experience
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Psychodynamic therapy is in my opinion one of the most deeply healing types of therapy. My training leans toward the interpersonal psychoanalytic psychotherapy approach. This means we seek to clarify the meanings you make out of your experiences, why you think, feel, and respond the way you do, and how you’ve come to understand why you are the way you are. We identify how events, perhaps very early in your life, have contributed to ongoing feelings of pain, loss, or patterns you wish would change. We explore what about these ways of being are working or not working for you. By processing these experiences and meanings, we determine together whether acceptance or change is necessary. The therapeutic relationship is central to this process. My experiences of you can help us better understand or uncover “blind spots” that might not be readily apparent.
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Feminist therapy is for everyone, not just women. This type of therapy is so valuable for recognizing the social systems that affect and influence our lives and how we see ourselves. Socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religion, race, gender and other characteristics shape our experience in the world and can play an important role in the strengths and weaknesses we embody and the challenges we face. It can be extremely important to appreciate and understand how our positions in the world have affected our experiences because sometimes the problem is not you, the problem is the social system within which we all exist. When that is the case, we need to determine how that understanding might change or affect the way you are responding or living within that system.
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Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a set of tools that can assist you in making some change now. It focuses on learning and practicing new skills to adjust behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. I find that some people respond very positively to CBT while others are much more interested in gaining deeper insights into who they are and why they are the way they are (a more psychodynamic approach).
I am a New York State Licensed Mental Health Counselor (Lic. #007138), a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in CA (Lic. #16249), and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in FL (Lic. #16249). I earned an M.S.Ed in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from St. John's University here in New York. Prior to entering private practice, I provided psychotherapy to patients at the NYC Department of Health STD clinics, treating a range of issues including dating and relationship concerns, anxiety and depression, substance abuse, sexual assault, HIV and other STD diagnoses, sexuality and gender related concerns, and out-of-control sexual behavior. I have also completed postgraduate training in Eating Disorders, Compulsions, and Addictions and in Intensive Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis & Psychology.
Have More Questions?
There are answers to additional questions at my FAQs page. If you don't see your question listed there, please contact me here.
I work with women in NYC around relationships, discouragement, depression, anxiety, recovering bulimia, self-esteem, and sexuality and sexual health.
I work with gay/bi and trans men around faith related issues, depression, anxiety, relationships, sexuality, and some substance use.
I am passionate about working with women and men who have experienced shame associated with their sexual experiences, sexuality, or sexual health.