Even in a city with endless opportunities, we can still face challenges, emotional disappointment, and discouragement.

If you haven’t been feeling your best, stress and worry are taking over your thoughts, or you’re feeling disappointed by a relationship or other circumstances in your life, perhaps I can help.

It's Time To Start Feeling Better

Therapy is a great way to untangle the challenges we face within and outside of ourselves. It can help us attend to our emotions and learn to more effectively get our needs met. And it can give us tools to manage anxiety, worry, and other feelings that sometimes keep us stuck.

To learn more about areas where I can help, see below:

Areas of Practice

Depression

Anxiety

Relationship Issues

Dating Heartbreak and Dating Patterns

Sexuality/Sexual Health

Herpes Diagnosis

Recovering Bulimia

Self-Esteem

I'm excited to support you on your journey.
Learn more about working with me here.

I have helped women with depression feel hope and strength again, as we explore the primary causes and how to heal and correct them. Sometimes it leads back to low self-esteem or a relationship or circumstance in our past that has led to inaccurate beliefs about ourselves. Healing these experiences while also using new cognitive and behavioral tools can help someone depressed feel hope again.

I have helped women understand the roots of their anxiety and learn tools to cope with these overwhelming thoughts and feelings. Anxiety can affect areas of our lives like sleep, our ability to focus, or feeling secure in relationships. Anxiety sometimes keeps us stuck from making progress, or engaging in activities or projects we need or want to be involved in. Healing from experiences that have contributed to anxiety are so important and learning tools to begin managing these thoughts and feelings can make a real difference.

Relationships are deeply important to those who work with me. We all need others. We are social beings. We care what others think of us. We want to be valuable to the people we love. We don’t want to hurt them. And we want to protect ourselves from people who will hurt us or who we simply don’t like. I think a lot of mental health concerns circle back to our relationships. Healing old relationship wounds, breaking patterns that aren’t working, and teaching healthy relationship skills are the foundation of my work with clients. Imagine feeling effective in your communication, able to deal with conflict, secure and confident with others, a sense of deep self-acceptance, and being able to move toward intimacy with others who have the capacity to do the same.

Dating in New York City is tough! Everyone wants to find love. This is an area of passion for me. When dating isn’t working, there is often a pattern of attracting and being attracted to partners who aren’t a great fit emotionally. It’s important to untangle this, understand what your patterns are, and to learn how to shift them. You can get off of the cycle of choosing the wrong people.

Our sexuality is a core component of our lives. Yet, sometimes it’s hard to talk about. No matter what your experience, it’s my goal to help you to feel safe and not judged. I have lots of experience helping clients cope with the experience of having an STI, especially herpes. I’ve also helped clients who have had emotionally painful experiences surrounding sex. It’s a passion of mine to support clients in becoming empowered around their sexuality and choices, to be able to express their values, needs, desires, and boundaries, and to know that these things matter and deserve respect.

I have been working with women coping with the surprise and sadness of a genital herpes diagnosis for many years. I'm grateful to say that although it feels hard to imagine finding a way through when you are first diagnosed, you can totally get your self-esteem back, live your life, find love, have babies, and feel like yourself again. I've seen it time and time again. Herpes is often the catalyst to tackling self-esteem and relationship issues that were there before a diagnosis. The most healing thing I've seen is for women to meet other women like themselves, which is what we're doing in my herpes therapy group.

I work with clients who are recovering from bulimia, those who have been in treatment and are looking for weekly individual sessions to continue their progress. Working with me is ideal for individuals who have and are using skills to manage their symptoms and now really want to focus on healing pain from the past, improving relationships, increasing self-confidence and self-acceptance, and addressing any feelings of depression or anxiety.

There are many painful life experiences or even just patterns that have happened during our life that can affect our self-esteem. Feeling good about ourselves, I mean, have a deep self-acceptance, can make a noticeable difference in the way we experience life and relationships. Imagine really knowing that you deserve to be treated kindly and respectfully, to find connection and love, to be valued at work, and that your needs and what you have to say are valid and matter. This is another area that I feel connects many of my clients, no matter the reason they are coming to counseling and it’s something that you can heal and change.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

If you are ready for this journey, I’d love to talk with you. Call or email me for a brief phone consultation to see if we are a good fit. 917-689-6530 or melissa@myheartdances.com