I’m a licensed clinical psychologist who works with adult women navigating anxiety, depression, self-esteem concerns, and the day-to-day struggles that come with living a full and demanding life. Most of the women I work with are high-achieving and analytically minded. They have a good understanding of what is happening and why. But understanding alone has not been enough to change things. This is where the therapy work tends to be most useful.
A lot of the women who reach out say some version of the same thing. They describe feeling like a drill sergeant with themselves, holding themselves to standards that would be unacceptable for anyone else. They say their brain is always looking for something they have done wrong. They feel like perfectionism is in the driver’s seat, and they are along for the ride. Standing on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade on a clear afternoon, surrounded by people who look like they have it together, can make that feeling even more pronounced when you know how much you are carrying underneath.
What brings most women in is not one dramatic event. It is the recognition that the same patterns keep showing up. In relationships, in work, in how they talk to themselves. They spend so much time thinking about what other people want and need that they have lost the thread of what they want. They want to show up authentically in their lives. They want to stop playing in the shadows. They say to themselves: “I cannot live like this anymore; something needs to change.”
The women I work with tend to share certain things in common. Here are some signs that this kind of therapy might be worth exploring:
We tend to start by getting curious together. What is actually going on? What are the thoughts that show up in the difficult moments, and where do they come from? What are the emotions connected to those thoughts, and what behaviors follow? Most of the women I work with are already asking these questions. The difference in therapy is that we slow it down, look at it carefully, and figure out what is actually true versus what the anxious or self-critical part is insisting is true.
From there, the focus moves toward building new responses. Not just understanding the pattern, but actually practicing something different. That happens in session and through work between sessions. Homework is part of how change consolidates, and we always decide together what makes sense to practice. The goal is not perfection. The goal is to develop the ability to respond to your life with more flexibility and less automatic self-judgment.
You don’t have to keep trying to figure this out on your own.
I am a licensed clinical psychologist with close to 20 years of experience working with adults. The women I work with most often are the ones who have tried to think their way through the problem and have found that understanding it is not the same as changing it. I am trained in CBT, and I integrate ACT, mindfulness, compassion-focused approaches, and emotion-focused work depending on what someone actually needs. What I care about most is that the work is useful, not just insightful.
People tell me the work feels both structured and warm. There is a clear direction and a real framework, and there is also room to slow down, to explore, and to be a person in the room rather than just a patient. I ask questions that make people think in ways they have not thought before, and I push, but gently. I have a steady belief that this is something that can change, and I bring that into every session.
CBT as the primary framework, with practical tools that make sense and transfer to daily life.
I see clients in person at my Brooklyn Heights office and my Midtown Manhattan office, and online for anyone in New York State.
The approach is always shaped by what the individual actually needs. These are the primary frameworks I draw from, and most of the time, the work involves more than one.
CBT is the foundation of my practice. It works by looking carefully at the connection between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. In sessions, we identify what is going through your mind in the distressing moments, examine whether those thoughts are accurate or distorted, and build more useful and realistic ways of looking at the situation. For women dealing with anxiety, self-esteem concerns, or patterns that keep repeating, this work often provides a real framework for the first time.
What this looks like in sessions:
ACT is something I incorporate often, particularly for women whose insight has outpaced their ability to change. Some people can see exactly what their thoughts are and why they are distorted, but their feelings do not follow suit. ACT addresses your relationship to your thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves. It focuses on accepting your emotional experience, clarifying what you actually value, and taking action in the direction of those values even when the anxiety or self-doubt is still present.
What this looks like in sessions:
A significant part of what keeps women stuck is avoiding the emotion rather than moving through it. When an emotion feels dangerous or overwhelming, the instinct is to push it away, intellectualize it, or keep moving. In the work we do, I help women actually get in touch with what they are feeling, understand what it is and where it comes from, and learn to exist alongside it rather than needing it to disappear before they can function. When that happens, the emotion tends to become less urgent, less controlling.
What this looks like in sessions:
Avoidance is one of the most powerful ways anxiety and OCD maintain their grip. Every time something feared is avoided, the avoidance feels like relief in the short term and reinforces the anxiety in the long term. ERP involves approaching what has been avoided, gradually and carefully, in a way that demonstrates to your nervous system that the feared outcome is less certain than it feels. For OCD and for anxiety patterns organized around avoidance, this tends to be where the most meaningful change happens.
What this looks like in sessions:
The concerns women bring to therapy rarely arrive in clean categories. Anxiety shows up in relationships. Self-esteem sits underneath depression. Life transitions destabilize identity. These are some of the most common concerns and what the work looks like for each one.
Women describe it in different ways. An uncontrollable spiral from so many angles. Tripping over worry constantly. A sense that anxiety keeps reminding them it is still there, no matter what they do to manage it. The body is exceedingly anxious, and the mind keeps feeding it. For many women, the anxiety has become so familiar that they are not sure who they are without it, only that it is exhausting to live with. In CBT, we look closely at what the anxiety is actually responding to, what the thoughts are that are fueling it, and what avoidance has been keeping it in place. The goal is not to eliminate anxiety but to stop it from running the show.
Depression for women often does not look like the version people expect. It can show up as a kind of hiding from the world and distracting from thinking too carefully about what is happening. Waking up with a dread that does not seem connected to anything specific. Feeling deflated, depleted, and flat in the middle of a life that looks fine from the outside. Women who are functioning well at work and in their relationships can still be dealing with a low mood that has quietly narrowed what they allow themselves to feel or want. The work addresses what is sustaining it, what behavioral patterns have developed around it, and what actually needs to change for the mood to shift.
A visceral sense of not being a person of value. A brain that is always looking for something done wrong. The feeling that everyone else is somehow more deserving. Many women carry a self-esteem wound that is so longstanding it feels like a fact about themselves rather than a belief that can be examined. Perfectionism becomes the driver because it feels like the only protection against being found out. Therapy looks at where these beliefs came from, what early messages are still being lived by, and what it would actually mean to hold yourself to the standard you hold everyone else.
A career change, a relationship ending, becoming a parent, losing someone significant, moving from one chapter to another. Transitions do not have to be dramatic to be disorienting. What makes them hard for many women is the identity question underneath them: who am I now, if not the person I was in that role? The strategies that worked before may stop working. The sense of self that felt solid may become uncertain. Therapy during transitions helps clarify what has actually changed, what is still true about who you are, and what the next chapter actually gets to look like.
Spending so much time thinking about what other people want instead of what you want or need. Being afraid that asking for what you want will ruin things. Freaking out after expressing a need, convinced that you have done something wrong. These are some of the most common patterns women bring in, and they tend to show up across relationships regardless of who the other person is. The pattern is relational, and it has a history. Therapy looks at how it developed, what it is protecting, and what it actually takes to start showing up differently in the relationships that matter, without the constant fear of the consequences.
No one needs to be perfect as much as some women feel they do. The drill sergeant’s voice. The sense that making a mistake means the world is ending. The way imperfection cracks something open that feels dangerous. Perfectionism is not about high standards, though it often looks that way from the outside. It is a coping strategy that has outlived its usefulness and is now getting in the way of the life someone actually wants. Compassion-focused work alongside CBT helps women examine where the critical voice came from, what it has been trying to protect, and what a more honest and less punishing relationship with themselves could look like.
OCD shows up in many forms, and for women, it often involves intrusive thoughts that feel disturbing or shameful, compulsive checking or reassurance-seeking, or rigid patterns organized around preventing a feared outcome. The thoughts feel charged and meaningful in a way that ordinary thoughts do not. The compulsions provide temporary relief and keep the cycle in place. Exposure and Response Prevention is the most effective treatment available for OCD, and the work involves gradually facing what has been avoided without performing the compulsion, so the brain can learn that the feared outcome is not as inevitable as it feels.
These are some of the unique characteristics of therapy for women and why they matter.
Most women who come in have already spent a lot of time thinking about what is going on. They have a strong sense of the patterns, and in many cases, they can explain exactly why those patterns developed. The part that feels stuck is that the understanding has not translated into change. Therapy is where we slow that down, look at it more closely, and start working with it in a way that actually shifts how things play out day to day.
Therapy can help:
A lot of what women bring into therapy is shaped by how they have learned to move through the world. There is often a strong pull to stay responsible, to keep things together, and to think carefully about how actions affect other people. Over time, that can turn into patterns like overthinking, self-criticism, and hesitation around speaking up or taking up space, even when there is a clear sense of what is wanted.
Most women struggle with:
The difference tends to show up in what gets paid attention to. Many women are already very good at analyzing situations and understanding other people. What is often harder is turning that same clarity toward themselves without immediately defaulting to self-blame or second-guessing. Therapy makes space to look at those patterns directly and to work with them in a way that feels more balanced and usable in real situations.
Therapy can help:
The goal is not just to feel better in the moment, but to be able to respond differently when the same situations come up again. That usually means practicing new ways of thinking, responding, and making decisions while still in the middle of real life. Over time, those shifts start to feel more natural, and there is less need to rely on overthinking or self-criticism to get through things.
Therapy helps to learn:
Many people come into a first session unsure what to expect or how much to share. That is completely understandable, and there is no required depth on day one. Here is what the first session typically involves:
Most people leave the first session with a clearer picture of what is actually going on and a realistic sense of what the work could involve. You do not need to have it organized before you come in.
There is often a question underneath all of this about worth and deservingness. That is something we can take seriously and work through together.
We start by exploring what’s going on beneath the surface so we can understand what’s driving your challenges.
Together, we connect the dots between your thoughts, emotions and behaviors to discover the meanings you place on distressing events in your life.
You’ll learn and try out new ways of thinking, feeling, and responding that support lasting,
healthy change.
We focus on deepening your growth and helping you carry what you’ve learned into everyday life with confidence and clarity.
Therapy for women is mental health therapy that takes seriously the specific experiences, pressures, and life stages that shape women’s wellbeing. It is not a separate clinical category from general therapy, but a way of working that recognizes how social expectations, relational roles, identity development, and women’s particular patterns of self-criticism and people-pleasing shape what women bring into a therapy room.
The work is structured, collaborative, and grounded in evidence-based approaches matched to what you actually need. It starts with understanding what is happening and moves toward building real tools for change.
The concerns women most commonly bring to therapy include anxiety, depression, self-esteem and perfectionism, life transitions, relationship difficulties, and the effects of social and cultural pressures. These rarely arrive in isolation. Self-esteem sits underneath depression. Anxiety shows up in relationships. Life transitions destabilize identity. The work addresses the full picture rather than isolating one piece.
Women seek therapy for many reasons, and they often wait longer than they should before doing so. Most women who reach out have been managing privately for some time. They have tried to think their way through it, talked to trusted people, changed the circumstances, and found that none of it changed the underlying pattern. By the time someone reaches out, there is usually a clear recognition that something needs to change and that it is not going to happen without some help.
Women experience anxiety and depression at significantly higher rates than men. The reasons are both biological and social. Hormonal changes across a woman’s life, including puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause, have direct effects on mood and emotional regulation. Social and cultural factors compound this: women carry a disproportionate share of emotional labor, face particular pressures around performance and appearance, and are often socialized to manage privately and put others first.
Therapy for women begins with a clear look at what is actually happening. The first sessions focus on understanding the situation fully, identifying the patterns that are sustaining the difficulty, and beginning to map what needs to change. From there, the work becomes more active, building the tools and perspectives that change the pattern rather than just explaining it.
Homework is central to how change consolidates in CBT-based therapy. It might be a thought record, a gradual approach to something that has been avoided, a values-clarification exercise, or a daily practice. It is always decided collaboratively and always tied to your actual goals.
Therapy for women is appropriate for any adult woman who is dealing with anxiety, depression, self-esteem concerns, relationship patterns, or life transitions, and who is ready to do real work on changing those patterns. The women I work with best are analytically minded and willing to explore. They want to understand what is happening, and they are committed to trying something different, even when it is uncomfortable.
I work with adults dealing with anxiety, depression, self-esteem, OCD, and life issues. I do not specialize in trauma as a primary concern, active substance use, or severe emotional dysregulation requiring a DBT-based program. If those are the primary concerns, I am glad to help with a referral.
Sessions vary depending on what you are working on. In the early stage, most of the time is spent building a clear picture of the situation and identifying the patterns that are sustaining it. As the work progresses, sessions become more focused on active change, and the homework becomes more specific to what you are practicing between sessions.
Good therapy is not just a space to process. It is structured work toward specific change. The difference between talking to a trusted friend and working with a therapist is the framework, the training, and the objective stance that can see what you cannot see from inside the pattern.
Earlier than most women do. Most women who reach out have been managing privately for months or years before making the call. Therapy is not only for crisis moments. It is useful whenever something is getting in the way of the life you want to be living, and the earlier the work begins, the less entrenched the patterns tend to be.
CBT-based therapy has strong research support for anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and OCD, which are the primary concerns I work with. Whether any particular course of therapy is effective depends on the fit between the therapist and client, consistency of attendance, and genuine engagement with the work between sessions. What I can say honestly is that the women who do this work and stay with it tend to see real change, not the absence of hard days but a meaningfully different relationship with their own experience.
We check in on progress regularly. Therapy is not a one-way street, and the work adjusts based on what is actually changing. If something is not working, we talk about it. That conversation is part of the work.
The length depends on what you are working on and how longstanding the pattern is. CBT is often time-limited by design, and many people see meaningful change within 12 to 20 sessions. Others work for longer, particularly when the pattern is deeply rooted or when multiple concerns are being addressed. We talk about timeline regularly, and the work ends when you have the tools to manage independently, not when everything is perfect.
General therapy addresses mental health concerns without specific attention to the context of being a woman. Therapy for women takes that context into account. This does not mean every session focuses on gender. It means the therapist understands how women’s social roles, relational patterns, life stages, and the particular way women tend to internalize pressure and self-criticism shape what they bring to therapy.
Meaningful change in therapy rarely looks dramatic. It tends to look like fewer days at the lowest point, recovering more quickly after a hard stretch, noticing the thought without automatically believing it, and making a different choice than you would have made before. We build in regular check-ins so that progress is tracked and the work can be adjusted if something is not moving in the right direction.
Understanding the financial side before you start is reasonable and important.
My fees are consistent with those of private-practice clinical psychologists in Brooklyn. I share specific fee information during the initial consultation so there are no surprises.
I am an out-of-network provider. I do not bill insurance directly, but many PPO plans offer out-of-network mental health benefits that reimburse a meaningful portion of session costs.
Before deciding whether out-of-network is feasible, it is worth one phone call.
I provide monthly superbills with the diagnostic and procedure codes your insurer needs so you can submit for reimbursement yourself.
Many clients find their actual out-of-pocket cost, after reimbursement, is lower than expected. It is worth making that call before assuming it is not feasible.
Yes. Online sessions are available for adults anywhere in New York State. The clinical work is identical to in-person sessions, and most of the approaches I use, including CBT, ACT, and mindfulness-based work, translate fully to an online format. Many women find online sessions easier to maintain consistently, particularly when managing a full schedule.
Yes, in-person sessions are available at my Brooklyn Heights office for clients in the area.
The office is steps from Borough Hall / Court Street Station, served by the 2, 3, 4, 5, N, R, and W trains, approximately a 1 to 3-minute walk. Jay St-MetroTech Station, with A, C, F, and R trains, is about 5 minutes away. Several bus routes, including the B25, B41, B57, and B6,1 stop within one block. For drivers, Icon Parking at 180 Montague Street and LAZ Parking at 92 Livingston Street are nearby. Street parking is available but can be limited during business hours.
Many clients come from Cobble Hill, DUMBO, Park Slope, and Boerum Hill, as well as from other parts of Brooklyn and from Manhattan. If you are close to Borough Hall or within a reasonable commute, in-person sessions are a practical option.
The first step is a free 15-minute phone consultation. We will talk about what you are dealing with, I will answer your questions about how I work, and we can decide together whether working with a depression therapist in Brooklyn is the right fit. Reach me at (718) 569-7339 or via my website.
The foundation is CBT, which is one of the most researched and effective approaches available for anxiety, depression, and self-esteem concerns. What distinguishes the work is that it does not stay only on the surface of the thoughts. Many people already understand their thoughts. They can identify the distortion, and they can articulate why it is not rational. The feeling does not follow suit. That is where the ACT and emotion-focused work comes in, addressing the relationship to the experience rather than just the content of it.
A free 15-minute consultation is the first step. We will talk about what has been going on, I will share how I work, and together we will figure out whether this is the right fit. No pressure. No commitment. Just an honest conversation about whether working together makes sense.
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