Therapy for Depression and Mood Disorders

A mood disorder describes a disruption or disturbance in mood or disposition. Mood disorders include diagnosis of depression, bipolar disorder, grief reaction, seasonal affective (SAD), dysthymic and cyclothymic (mild bipolar symptoms) disorders.

Symptoms of depression can include a sad mood or dysphoria, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, apathy and lack of motivation, low self-esteem and loneliness. Mood disorders interfere with your ability to work, concentrate and socialize, and compromise your personal relationships.

By using psychoanalytic, cognitive and mindfulness-based techniques, I can help you alleviate these symptoms by identifying the underlying reasons for your depression, develop more effective ways to cope, and in general, feel less overwhelmed, more hopeful, effective and happier in your life.

Therapy for Anxiety

Anxiety is a physiological response to a stressful or potentially dangerous situation. In its normal state, anxiety is an important human coping mechanism. When anxiety becomes excessive or irrational, it is considered an anxiety disorder.

Anxiety disorders can be generalized, namely, a free-floating anxiety, or can take the form of a panic attack, or a phobia, that is, a persistent and recurrent fear of a particular situation, object or activity like agoraphobia. Maybe you suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Anxiety can be debilitating and limiting. It can hold you back from living fully and expressing your true self. With the support and healing power of our therapeutic relationship and the use of cognitive-behavioral, mindfulness and/or psychoanalytic techniques, you can learn new patterns of thought, feeling and behaviors that will minimize the symptoms of anxiety and help you cope more effectively with stressors in your life.

Therapy for Emotional Dysregulation

Emotional regulation is a complex process that involves initiating, inhibiting and modulating one’s mental state and behavior in response to internal or external stimulus. It involves maintaining thoughts, behaviors and expressions within a socially acceptable range. Emotional dysregulation refers to the inability of a person to control or regulate their emotional responses to perceived provocative stimuli. It can also be termed “emotional hyperactivity”. In life, people are repeatedly exposed to various stressful situations like conflict in a relationship, personal criticism or perceived abandonment.

A person with emotional dysregulation might react to these interpersonal challenges in an emotionally exaggerated way: bursts of anger or crying, accusing, passive-aggressive behaviors etc. Emotional dysregulation is present in many psychiatric conditions, but is particularly prevalent in Borderline Personality Disorders. It can also be part of the symptomatology in PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), Panic and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders, and wherever addiction is an issue.

I can help a person feel less reactive, and more in control of their responses to perceived provocation. Using a mixture of psychoanalytical, cognitive-based mindfulness techniques, mentalization-based therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, you can achieve increased self-confidence, and self-regulation, together with more equanimity and general happiness in personal relationships.

Couples Therapy

Couples tend to seek therapy when they feel stuck in patterns of relating that are not working. These can be disruptive and destructive to the relationship/and or family. They also seek help when there is conflict about important decisions like getting married, having children, breaking-up or to cope with the effects of infidelity. Couples therapy provide a safe space, where you will:

Discover the origins of the underlying problems in the relationship.
Identify and own the individual unresolved personal issues that are brought into and, compromise the relationship.
Develop more effective listening skills, becoming more aware of your partner’s needs and feelings, as well as your own.
Identify negative, habitual patterns of interaction, for example, the recruitment of criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling or contempt when having a difference or argument.
Create a vision for how you aspire to be in a relationship, instead of wishing your partner to change.
Learn new, more effective patterns of interaction, practice them frequently and seek mastery of them.

Family Therapy

As a family therapist with over two decades of experience with many different types of families, I understand that a stressful event or crisis can affect the family system as a whole. The following are examples of situations that affect every member of a family and thus, family therapy might be helpful:
When a child or teen is troubled, has behavioral problems or performs badly in school
When a family member is abusing a substance, or has a mental illness
When there is physical, sexual or emotional abuse
When there is overwhelming stress during times of transitions

Therapy for Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is an external solution in response to intolerable feelings, like anxiety, loneliness, shame, anger etc.

I will help you develop strategies that will enable you to contain and accept your negative feelings and cope more effectively with stress, through the implementation of Dialectical Behavior Therapy and cognitive-based mindfulness techniques, combined with a psychodynamic approach to help transform the long-standing patterns of thinking and feeling.

While I treat eating issues, ranging from yo-yo dieting to compulsive overeating, I do not treat severe bulimia or anorexia (when it becomes life-threatening).

Immigration Psycho-Social Reports

I have been writing psycho-social evaluations for immigration purposes for the last several years with good success.

Call me at 646-320-9910 if you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment.

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.”

Checa-Rosen

M.A., Ed.M, L.C.S.W

Maria